


The Prize is a Lifetime Supply

by merriman



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Complete, Don't copy to another site, Friends vs Friends, Fun With Quickenings, Gen, Post-Canon, Swordfighting, beginning of the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-20 02:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20667974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/pseuds/merriman
Summary: It's the time of the Gathering, when all the Immortals in the world start to come together and duel for the ultimate prize. What's the prize? No one seems to know, exactly, but that's how it works, so that's what they do. Someone, some day, will know what the prize entails, what power it might bestow. Hopefully, whoever wins will be someone who knows what to do with it all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a very long time coming. I first had the idea ages ago and I've been batting it around for years. A couple of years back I decided to make it my NaNoWriMo project and actually write it out and I did it! And then it languished for need of editing.
> 
> Well. Editing is mostly done. There's some stuff at the end that needs cleaning up, but for the most part it's ready. I figure I'll post a chapter every few days or so until it's all up.
> 
> A quick note about the Amanda/Duncan relationship - It's not the focal point of the story and mostly shows up around midway through. I'd rather not mislead anyone.

The Watchers had speculated for centuries on the topic of the Gathering. How did Immortals know it would come? What would it actually entail? How long would it take? Why would it happen? That last tied into the bigger questions the more academic-minded Watchers entertained, such as the nature of the Prize itself and why Immortals felt compelled to fight each other at all. Some theorized that the Gathering meant a difference in how Immortals perceived each other. That there was an additional urgency to fight somehow. That even those Immortals who had held themselves out of the Game for centuries would feel the need to leave holy ground and take up arms, or sacrifice themselves. 

Which was precisely what was happening. It had been happening for a few decades now. Some Immortals had resisted for longer than others. Some seemed to have been relatively immune to the call of whatever spurred the others to fight. But they all came out of the woodwork eventually. Things sped up as more and more fell. Power consolidated into a handful of Immortals and they seemed to attract each other like magnets. 

Meanwhile, the Watchers were closing up shop. At least, the field offices were. There just wasn't the need now. A few stayed active in key points, agents ready to be on the lookout for new Immortals popping up despite the fact that none had appeared in the past fifteen years. You never knew. 

Now it was down to some remote monitoring and a main office in Paris. Duncan MacLeod had hied off to Scotland once he knew they were down to twenty or so Immortals. Adam Pierson, of all people, had managed to keep his head - a matter of considerable gossip among his former peers - and was now hiding out in Tibet. Amanda had fallen two years back, victim to a nasty piece of work named Viner. Then MacLeod had taken his head and they'd all breathed a sigh of relief. Cassandra was still around, or so everyone assumed. She was good at hiding and all they had to go on was a lack of anyone in her last known vicinity in Quebec. This had all happened before - Immortals scattering, only to come back together when they couldn't resist the pull.

"Sir?" A fresh-faced young agent was standing in Joe Dawson's office door. With _his_ Immortal in the finals, so to speak, Joe had found himself somehow vaulted to the upper echelons of the organization. All of the remaining Watchers whose Immortals were still in the running had offices in the main building of the European headquarters. All the better to keep each other informed. 

"What's going on?" Joe asked. He didn't recognize this kid. She was new, tattoo fresh on her wrist. Seemed odd they'd still be recruiting, but then he supposed no one knew what came next. They might well need new folks to spread word of what had happened if the Prize turned out to be world domination or something equally annoying.

"It's Cassandra," the kid said. "She's on the move. Robards too. And Shen. And Gina de Valicourt."

Joe scowled, then nodded. "Right. Where are they headed? Any ideas?"

"Control says it looks like they're headed to Europe. They want to know if you've seen any movement from MacLeod?"

"Not as of this morning," Joe said, quickly turning to check his computer for any updates. Nothing. "Nope. He's still moping around that loch of his. What about Pierson?"

"Still in Tibet," the kid said, shrugging. "Odds on him are pretty bad."

"Hey," Joe snapped. "He was one of us once. I wouldn't underestimate him just cause he's young. He's older than you, he knows a few of the others and how they fight, and he's got a sword." 

The kid had the decency to look down at the floor. "Of course, sir. I wasn't thinking about that."

"Yeah," Joe muttered. "Sure. I'll let everyone know if Mac moves."

When the kid was gone, Joe turned back to his computer. Mac definitely wasn't moving. They had hooked into the GPS in Mac's truck and it was exactly where it had been for months, save for the occasional trip into the nearest town for groceries. Joe supposed he could have a horse or something, or just walked. But there was nothing for vast stretches of land out there. No. MacLeod was exactly where MacLeod wanted to be: Home.

As for Pierson, well. He was craftier than the Watchers knew. A few suspected who he really was - Amy Zoll, for one, had figured it out but hadn't been able to convince enough of the Council. She'd started keeping a second set of chronicles on him about twenty years back. For posterity, she said.

"That sneaky son of a bitch!" came a voice from down the hall. That was Amy, which could only mean Pierson had left Tibet without her knowing. "Do you know what he did?" she called out to everyone within earshot. "He hiked! He hiked out of Tibet!"

Joe got up from his desk and left his office, heading down the hall to Amy's. Two of their fellows, Louis and Ames, were already at her door, but they made way for him when he got there.

"He sent me an email, Dawson," Amy told him. "Why did I ever agree to take him on?"

"Because you couldn't pass up a challenge," Joe guessed. "So where the hell is he now?"

Amy was staring at her screen, scowling at it as if that might make what was on it go away. "Paris," she said. "The asshole managed to get all the way to Paris without us knowing. Thank god he's the only ex-Watcher Immortal we've ever had. I don't think we could function if more of them knew how we operate."

"You and me both," Joe said. "I guess I'd better go see if MacLeod's moving too. If Pierson's here, there's a good chance this is it."

"Why do you say that?" Louis asked as Joe passed out of Amy's office. "It's not like he has any special insight."

"No, but both him and Mac have been avoiding this whole thing as much as possible. Robards, Cassandra, even Gina. They all kept going after Pierson and MacLeod hunkered down. If it was only them headed together? I'd say we're just about to lose a few more. But Pierson? He wouldn't move unless he had to."

From her desk, Amy let out a laugh. "You've got that right, Joe. Guys, I keep telling you Pierson's not who you think he is. I'm with Joe on this one. If he's here in Paris, we're looking at the end."

"I always thought they'd pick somewhere else," Ames said. "Somewhere, you know, special."

"Wherever they end up doing it _will be_ special," Louis said as he headed back to his office. "Anyhow, whoever wins, maybe we can get permission to ask."

* * *

The city was, for the most part, like he remembered it. Not that Methos had figured Paris would have changed much in a scant few decades. A little, but not enough to shift the city's personality. It was still Paris. It would always be Paris. But Paris wasn't where he had to be. Of course, he wasn't sure yet where he had to be, but it wasn't Paris. This was just a waypoint now. A spot to spend the night while he cast about for where to go next.

The first stop he made in the city was the bookstore. It was in someone else's hands now, of course, but it was always welcoming and he knew he could spend a few hours tucked away inside. He'd feel the pull to somewhere - or someone - soon enough.

Once there, he even made a purchase. Who knew how long he'd have to actually read it, but it only seemed polite, and it was the latest in a series he'd started reading years ago. Might as well get a few chapters in.

Halfway through the book, Methos looked up. Someone else was nearby. Or maybe not even that close. The range of perception had grown considerably since the Gathering had started in earnest. Where once it had been a matter of a block or so, now he could feel another Immortal within a mile or more. For a few minutes he considered just leaving. He could get up from his chair, take his unfinished book, find a taxi or get on a train and just go. He'd done it for ages before. Ages and ages of fights unfought simply by means of walking away instead.

It was downright galling to not be able to resist. Methos tucked his new book in his coat pocket and went outside to see which friend or stranger he was going to fight now.

Whoever it was, they weren't in view yet, but Methos could tell they were down a couple of blocks, obscured by people and a few trees. When he saw Gina de Valicourt, he tried to make himself turn around, walk the other direction, but then she smiled at him and he couldn't do it. Gina was a friend, after all. Even if he was probably going to try and kill her.

"Gina," Methos said. "No misunderstandings this time."

"No, Adam. No misunderstandings."

"I'm sorry about Robert."

"You didn't take his head," Gina said. "And I killed the bastard who did."

"Still," Methos said, shrugging. "I wish it could have been different."

"Me too," Gina agreed. "But it is not."

No. It wasn't. It was the Gathering. They found a good spot to fight, not too far away. As Methos drew his sword he thought, not for the first time or the last, that he wished this day had never come.

* * *

It was cold out, and damp, but Duncan had never minded that. It was a good excuse to build up the fire in his fireplace and have a nice hot meal. What he minded was the itch under his skin that begged him to leave his warm home and go out into the hills to find someone to fight. He minded his friends dying one by one, a few at his own hands when they couldn't stop themselves, almost throwing themselves at him in the compulsion to fight. On impulse, he thought hard for a moment, examining his sense of other Immortals for the barest hint that someone was even remotely nearby. But no one was. He could leave the house and roam for miles and find no one. That was comforting. Except he knew if he did that, he'd just keep going, moving towards some sense just out of reach that told him where the others were. 

No. No more. If he stayed, they might well come to him, but at least then he could comfort himself with the knowledge that he had tried. He had done his best. 

So Duncan resisted. He ate his dinner and sat himself down in front of the fire to mend a shirt he'd torn a few days earlier and steadfastly refused to go outside. The urge would abate after a while, only to grow again in a few days. It was almost predictable now, so it helped to have a routine for it.

The routine, however, did not include his phone ringing. Duncan set down the shirt and his needle and thread, and looked at the phone. It was definitely a call, not an alarm he'd set and forgotten about. But he didn't recognize the number. Two more rings and he considered letting it go to voicemail. It was probably a wrong number anyhow. But something made him pick it up at the last minute.

"Hello?"

"Mac?" The voice on the other end was painfully familiar, though he hadn't heard it in ten years.

"Joe? Is that you? Are you okay?" The possibilities of what might cause Joe Dawson to call him raced through Duncan's head. He could be hurt, the Watchers could have kicked him out, he could have heard something about, well, about a couple of people. But he wouldn't call for that last. At least, Duncan was pretty sure he wouldn't.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Joe assured him. "I just figured… Look. I'm on a burner phone and I can't talk long, I just wanted to check in. I know it's been ages but…"

"It's okay, Joe," Duncan cut in. "I'm glad you're fine. I guess you folks are busy? Or not? Or maybe you can't even tell me."

He heard Joe chuckle on the other end of the line and smiled. Even after a decade of no contact, Joe Dawson was reliable as ever.

"Oh, we're busy," Joe told him. "We've had all sorts of potential plans for this for ages. Do you know how hard it is to actually keep tabs on you guys when you hide out? It's not like I can keep an agent nearby when you're the only person for miles around."

Which was as good as Dawson telling him they knew where he was. Which meant they probably knew where the others were. Knew how they were doing. Who was dead. Who was alive.

"So you're calling to see if I'm still here?" Duncan asked, not unkindly.

"Yeah, sort of," Joe admitted. "Look, Mac, you and I both know it's getting down to the wire. I'm not trying to give you a heads up or anything. You already know the deal. I'm just asking, if you're going somewhere, take the truck."

Of course. The truck's GPS. Well, it wasn't like Joe hadn't done him favors in the past.

"Sure thing," Duncan told him. Then he paused, thinking about what might spur that sort of request. "Someone surprised you guys, didn't they. Walked somewhere and popped up where you didn't expect?"

"Yeah, and you can probably guess who," Joe said. "Which is more than I should have told you. He's a real pain in the ass, you know. Anyhow. It's good to hear your voice, Mac. I'm glad you're okay."

"Oh, believe me. I know how much of a pain in the ass the old man is. Good to hear your voice too, Joe. Listen, can you do something for me?"

"Depends," Joe said. "What is it?"

"Just make sure you get all of this written out right," Duncan told him. "I know you will, but keep an eye on the others you've got there. Make sure people know we didn't all want to do this. We held off as long as we could."

"Yeah, of course. We know you did," Joe said. "We know you are."

"Thanks," Duncan said. "If I go anywhere, you'll know. I promise."

"That's all I need to hear," Joe told him. "Good talking with you, Mac."

"You too, Joe."

After he hung up, Duncan stared at the door. The truck was parked to the side of the house, covered with a tarp against the damp. He could go out and get in it and drive until he felt the pull of the others, get it all over with a lot faster. But no. Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

* * *

Joe looked down at the phone, then over at Amy. She was leaning against the wall nearby, having listened to the whole thing.

"Well, that confirms that," she sighed. "MacLeod's in Scotland still. Pierson's in Paris. We just lost de Valicourt. Robards took out Cassandra after she landed at Gatwick. That leaves Shen, Robinson, and Nguyen. And I was right wasn't I. Pierson is Methos? I swear, I'm going to wring his neck if he wins the whole thing."

"Yeah, well, I told you he was devious," Joe muttered. "If he wins it all, I'll sit down and tell you everything I know about him."

"I'll hold you to that," Amy said as they headed back inside. "You know they can't really hold the MacLeod thing against you now, right?"

"The hell they can't," Joe said. "You just know if he wins it all, someone's gonna get in my face about it, like I somehow carried him to the Gathering myself."

He'd genuinely worried about that. About what the Council would say about MacLeod and Pierson both being in this last push to the end. None of the others left had that sort of meddling in their past. Pierson had the advantage of having been a Watcher, even without the additional bonus of being well over five thousand years old. MacLeod, well, his history with the Watchers in general and Dawson himself in particular, was well documented. If either of them won, there'd be talk about interference and probably accusations of cheating. 

Well, that was something to deal with later, _if_ either of them won. Secretly, Joe honestly wasn't sure who would win if it came down to the two of them. MacLeod was the better fighter, by far, but Methos was sneaky and underhanded and probably willing to use Mac's honorable nature against him. Then again, if it was just the two of them left, there was the possibility that MacLeod's honor wouldn't hold a candle to whatever urgency the Gathering held. Who knew, really. Then again, it wasn't a guarantee that either of them would be in the final match. Maybe Robards would take it all.

"Do you think he knows more about it?" Amy asked. "Pierson, I mean. He's Methos. The Methos. That means he's been around longer than any of the rest. Hell, it means he's older than our whole organization. What if he knows what the Gathering means? What the outcome is?"

"You know, I asked him once?" Joe told her. "I figured if he was so old and wise, he must know. He said he had no idea. That all he could remember was that he'd been told about it by other Immortals when there were still Immortals older than him around. It's not like he was the first. He just survived and they didn't."

"Huh." Amy nodded. "You know, I never really considered that. But he had to have had a teacher, right? Someone had to show him the ropes, tell him to stay off holy ground, explain quickenings. Does he remember that?"

Joe shrugged. "Not that he'll cop to. He just says everything before his first quickening is a blur."

"You believe him?"

"I wouldn't believe him if he said the sky was blue," Joe told her. "But I dunno. Maybe. What's our frame of reference, you know? I can't remember a whole hell of a lot from when I was a kid, and that wasn't five thousand years ago. Maybe the quickening zapped his memory. Maybe he's lying through his teeth and he remembers every minute. Doesn't much matter to us. We can't ask now."

"Guess not," Amy agreed. "If he wins, screw the rules. I'm asking him for an interview."

* * *

Despite his carefully cultivated attitude of not giving one tenth of a shit about anyone but himself, Methos really had liked Gina. She had been fun to spend time with, once she'd known he hadn't actually tried to kill her husband. Really, her sense of humor had been fairly close to his. They'd kept in touch over the years, Methos sending a postcard or an email every so often and Gina sending packages of oddities and treats to whatever P.O. box Methos had last given her, for him to discover when he next checked it.

Now she was gone. At his hand, no less. There had been a time when he would have been able to stop himself in the case of a friend. He'd had friends in desperate straits attack him in the hopes of losing their heads. Enemies he always killed. You didn't want one popping back up later. But friends? No. He'd been able to keep some of them alive through the centuries. Not this time. Not ever again, apparently. 

Methos slouched down in his seat and pulled his book out of his pocket. It wasn't up to the level of the other books in the series, but it was decent enough. Better yet, it was a distraction. If he could focus on the book, he wouldn't focus on why he was on the train to London or that he'd just taken a friend's head. Or that he could tell there was another Immortal somewhere on the train. Not in his car, but somewhere. He had no idea who it was. Maybe someone he knew, or had once known. It wouldn't matter once they got close enough.

It seemed whoever it was had the same idea Methos did, however, and was keeping to their own end of the train. There really wasn't any reason to get close when they couldn't do anything about it. Even someone as unconcerned with mortals' safety as Kronos wouldn't have wanted to fight on a train. Too much of a pain in the ass.

Book. Distraction. There was absolutely zero reason to think about Kronos right now. Aside from to think about how pissed he would be that Methos had made it to the end and he hadn't. Methos was fairly certain he wouldn't have been surprised, but angry, yes. Kronos had always been good at anger. Once upon a time, Methos had been good at anger too. But he'd also been good at patience.

Methos stared down at his book. He was going to finish the damn thing if it was the last thing he did.

* * *

When they got back to the office the buzz was that Robards had apparently decided to drop whatever facade of civility he'd once had and had managed to take two more heads in the same day.

"I bet he's on top of the leaderboards now," Joe muttered to Amy as they made their way up to their offices. "I barely know anything about the guy."

"Ex-military," Amy told him. "A long ways back, but still. I think he was a math teacher most recently."

"Good for him," Joe said. "I'm sure he'll go right back to explaining fractions if he wins the Immortal lottery."

The same young agent who'd come to Joe's door to tell him that Immortals were moving was rushing down the hall towards them.

"Pierson got on a train headed for London," she told them. "Shen is on the same one. It looks like everyone's heading for the UK."

Amy looked at Joe as he rubbed at his face with his free hand. "MacLeod's still in Scotland. I'd put money on them going to him if he won't come to them. He's got a higher kill count than most of them."

"All of them, except for Robards," the young woman said. Joe declined to correct her. It wasn't like he had anything close to an accurate count for Methos. 

"And Robards hasn't really been attempting to sit this whole thing out," Amy added. "Somewhere in the UK, then. Maybe even Scotland. Think they'll let us take a field trip for this once in a lifetime event?"

Given that the entire complement of agents in the building seemed to be packing up gear and rushing through the halls, it did seem likely that somewhere over their heads, the Council had decided that yes, they all had the right to see this through, some of them perhaps in person.

"Guess we should pack up what we need," Joe told Amy. "Bets on whether we get to be there when it goes down?"

"Depends on if our guys are still standing. I'll give you a hand in a bit."

* * *

Duncan tried to get to bed early. Being well rested was always a good idea, and it wasn't as if he had a whole lot to do at night. He could always read, but he meditated more these days. It helped keep him focused and grounded. It helped him stay where he was when everything that made him Immortal was screaming for him to move, find the others, fight. But Duncan had fought a demon before. He'd fought himself. He could fight this.

The past few years had been hard. He'd found it difficult to get to sleep some nights and usually blamed it on worry for his friends who were still out there, still fighting. Still dying. Now, though, he wondered if it had been something more akin to another Immortal coming close enough for him to sense subconsciously. 

It woke him in the middle of the night: Someone was getting closer. Duncan had his sword in his hand before he had even thought about it, before he'd taken the time to realize that no, whoever it was wasn't right outside his front door. He had some time. Briefly, he considered going back to bed. But no, then they would indeed be at his door by the time he woke up again, if he managed to get back to sleep, that was. So instead of going back to bed he got up and went to make himself some tea. Then he sat down with it to look over his sword. It had to be in good shape. So did he.

Dawn came both too slowly and too quickly. He hadn't wanted the night to end, but it had dragged on longer and longer than he could stand. When the sun came up, he could tell that there were others. It wasn't just a vague impression of something being wrong. It was a distinct sense of contact with another Immortal. Maybe it was someone he knew. That much he still couldn't tell. 

But they weren't at the house. They weren't even on his land yet. So Duncan set his sword down and made coffee. There was something oddly perverse about the normality of it. He was making coffee to wake himself up, as usual, on a day when he might well have to kill an old friend. Even if he wasn't going to face a friend, he'd be facing someone. He could feel it in his gut that the Game would end soon. There couldn't be that many left now.

With the coffee brewing, Duncan set about also making breakfast. No need to fight on an empty stomach, after all.

* * *

As soon as Joe had voiced his opinion that the remaining Immortals were all heading for Scotland, the Council had met and agreed in an amazingly short span of time. Most of the older Watchers were used to things moving at a fairly slow pace. While there was always the knowledge that fights happened fast and you could find yourself without your primary assignment at the drop of a hat, in general the whole attitude had always been that their subjects had the potential of all the time in the world, so the Watchers did too. Now, however, everything had started moving at breakneck speed.

The Council wanted everyone across the Channel as soon as possible, starting with people like Joe and Amy and their fellow agents following the remaining contenders. Two Council members, a handful of senior Watchers of various fields, and the select few had gone ahead to get into position.

Some people were staying behind in Paris. Others would move to the London office and set up shop there until everything was over. A handful would be allowed to go with Joe, Amy, and their fellows to witness the end of the Game in person.

To Joe's surprise, not all of the Council members wanted to be there. Some of them did, of course, but not all of them. The ones who declined all gave some variation on the line that they trusted their agents to document the event and get plenty of video and audio with the equipment they brought with them. Privately, Joe suspected at least two of them just couldn't stomach seeing it all go down in person. Only two of the Council had ever been actual field agents who'd seen it before. Or well, not this, but a challenge and a quickening.

Amy had claimed she didn't need her assistant and sent him over to Joe to give him a hand. The assistants were all upper level field agents, no green kids with no actual experience here. As far as Joe could tell, everyone who wasn't heading to Scotland was going to be watching from the big debriefing rooms in the various buildings the Watchers were still using. Joe figured they'd be a hell of a lot more comfortable than he was going to be. Scotland wasn't precisely warm and cozy this time of year.

"Ready?" Amy asked. "Got your blanket and your thermos of tea?"

"I've got long underwear and a fifth of Jack," Joe shot back. "How about you?"

"Coffee. Copious amounts of coffee," Amy said. "I might even share."

"You're all heart," Joe said.

There were sturdy trucks waiting for them in front of the building. All their equipment was loaded up - cameras, drones, computers to watch from, all ready. Now all they needed was to figure out where the final battles would happen and get there.

Joe buckled up as Amy got into the seat next to him.

"Ready?" he asked her. 

"I'd better be," she told him. "Let's go."

* * *

Of course it was raining. Methos wanted to find a way to blame MacLeod for that beyond it being MacLeod's fault that he was in Scotland. But no, that was the sum of it. They were in Scotland because Duncan MacLeod was of the Clan MacLeod and he was also the most stubborn jackass Methos had ever met, but he couldn't make it rain. He hadn't caused the Gathering. He was just a part of it all, like every other Immortal in the history of ever. 

The car he'd rented wasn't going to last long on the roads he needed to go on, but Methos wasn't particularly worried about that. If he won, he'd deal with it. If he lost, well, he'd be dead and it would be someone else's problem. He was fairly certain that there was no provision of transference of debt in the case of his beheading and his quickening being absorbed by someone else. Though wouldn't that be interesting? The legalities would make the issues of leaving one's estate to oneself pale in comparison. But it wasn't really something to worry about now. No one was going to have reason to consult a lawyer versed in Immortal needs anymore.

The other Immortal who'd been on his train hadn't actually materialized when they'd disembarked in London. Methos assumed it had been because a crowded train station was just as unappealing a place to fight as the train itself had been. But Methos could feel whoever it was, just on his heels. Once they were somewhere out of the way, Methos was sure he or she would show themselves. 

There was someone else too. Someone closing in on them fast from another direction. Try as he might, Methos couldn't feel anyone else very close, if at all. Maybe they were all gone. Maybe it was just the four of them now. The thought was more chilling than the weather. Over five thousand years to get here.

* * *

"He's moving," Joe said from the passenger seat. "Mac's truck. It's moving."

They'd gotten on the road early, heading for where the GPS placed MacLeod's truck and therefore home. Satellite pictures showed a small house in a valley with a dirt road leading out of it through the hills towards an actual paved road. If their maps were correct, Mac was still on the dirt road, but approaching the paved part quickly. It looked as though he'd finally been unable to hold back. But then, there were only four left, so that made sense.

As far as any of the convoy could tell, Shen was following Pierson and Robards was lurking nearby to the west. MacLeod was heading in Robards' direction. 

"Think they'll all end up in one place?" came Amy's voice from the phone mounted on the dash. "They're not that far away from each other now. We could end up with two matches in the same place. Haven't seen that in a while."

Not since Bordeaux, but Joe wasn't about to say that out loud. It wasn't worth bringing up just now, unless the matches were that close together again. And well, if that happened, there'd be plenty of documentation this time.

"They could," Joe said. "We have no idea how any of this works. We always figured if it did happen, they'd get drawn together somehow. Maybe whatever's making them go for each other, it's giving them one more than the other?"

"Shen is closing in on Pierson." Shen's Watcher, Lipov, was in another car entirely. They'd proposed sharing, but the Council had been adamant that they separate, just in case something happened and one of the last four went rogue somehow, haring off in another direction entirely. The rest of the spectators were in trucks following each one of them. Four little convoys.

"I'll stick with you," Amy told him.

"Yeah, Mac's definitely heading for Robards," Joe added. "But it looks like their paths are going to get awfully close."

Close enough that they'd all be within spitting distance. Joe watched as the little MacLeod dot on his screen moved ever closer to Robards. His driver sped up. Missing this wasn't an option. They'd never get another chance.

* * *

Three of them. There were three of them out there. Duncan could feel them each, bright and pulsing against his senses. One drew him more than the others. It was wrong, somehow. The others were just… They were like he would expect anyone else who'd made it this far: Powerful and determined. It was strange, being able to tell things like that, but useful too. Because truly, something was off about this other one. Whoever it was, they were dangerous. Duncan couldn't let them win the Game. Couldn't let them be the last one standing at the end.

He knew there was an old shepherd's hut over the next hill. It seemed likely that was where this other Immortal was. It couldn't be comfortable, but it was dryer than being out on the moors with no shelter. When he crested the hill, there it was. And there was a man with a sword, standing nearby, soaked through.

Duncan stopped his truck and got out, sword in hand already.

"I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod," he told the man, who laughed.

"Oh, I know who you are, Highlander. I've heard about you for the past century and a half. You get around. Or you did."

Duncan shrugged. "I did," he agreed. "Decided it was time to go back to my roots."

"What roots?" the other man asked. "We don't have roots, MacLeod. We're all adrift. Always have been. My name is Ben Robards. I spent my whole life on the move. Roots are an illusion. We owe this world nothing."

Duncan frowned. "We owe this world everything," he said softly. "Even if it treated us poorly, we're alive. We're here to finish the Game."

"But my friends aren't. My teacher. My wife. They're all gone. Every single one of them."

"I'm sorry," Duncan told him. And he was. He knew how that felt. No friends left, no teacher, no lover. There were countless losses in all of their lives. It still didn't make the world any less their responsibility.

"Sorry doesn't do much for the lives gone," Robards spat out. "When I win, they'll _all_ be gone."

"If you win," Duncan corrected him. "First, you have to beat me."

Robards nodded. "And I will," he promised. "I will take your head, Highlander. There can be only one."

* * *

"Pretty even match," Joe's driver commented as they watched the fight via a drone the driver was piloting. 

Robards' Watcher, Billings, was parked nearby, watching the same feed, though she also had a pair of binoculars she was checking through every so often.

"Good hit from MacLeod there," she commented. "Joe, pass that whiskey over?"

Her driver came to get it as Joe poured a little more for himself, then passed over the bottle. They'd been sharing it around since the fight had started. One thing they'd found when the Gathering had gotten down under 100 remaining Immortals was that fights tended to either be over almost immediately, or last forever. Mid-length fights were a thing of the past. Two well matched Immortals, full of power from their previous battles, could go on for an hour or more. It was a marathon or a sprint. Nothing in between. This fight was clearly shaping up to be a marathon.

Joe's phone buzzed and he looked down at it. 

"Amy says Shen is talking with Pierson," he told the others as one of the Council trucks pulled up behind them. "Billings, pass that bottle over to the next truck. They'll need it."

Over the next hill, Amy was watching as Pierson and Shen sat in Pierson's rented car and talked.

"My kingdom for a bug in that car," she muttered. "I hate rentals. They're so unpredictable unless we have someone in the rental office."

"What about one of the long range mics? Think they have a window cracked?" her assistant asked.

Amy looked through her binoculars. No windows open, but now Pierson was opening his door and getting out. He looked like he was personally offended by the weather and she had to stifle a laugh. It wasn't like she was any dryer, after all. But she had a thermos of coffee on the hood of the truck next to her, and a flask of mulled cider in her coat's inner pocket.

Shen was still in the car, but now the door was open. Pierson hadn't closed it. 

"Get that mic," Amy hissed to her assistant, but Lipov was already getting one out from his truck nearby. The Council truck was just sitting there, likely all watching the feed from her camera and enjoying being dry and warm.

* * *

"We have to," Methos told Shen. The man had followed him all the way from Paris, but was now trying to hold back. It was a lousy time for it, and Methos was sure Shen couldn't last. He could just open up the driver's side door, shoot him, and drag him out of the car. It was tempting, just to get it all over with.

On the other hand, Methos was utterly certain that the Watchers were probably huddled somewhere nearby, watching every move. And while he wasn't really worried about them liking him, it wasn't the sort of image he wanted to project to a group who were both aware of what was happening, and uncertain as to what it would mean in the end. They could end up deciding it was too risky to let a strangely bloodthirsty Adam Pierson win it all and take matters into their own hands. No. It was far better to at least be seen as safe. And safe didn't drag someone out of a car and shoot them. Safe played by the rules. Even the arbitrary honor-based ones.

Honor didn't demand that he be polite about it, though, so Methos felt no need to not yell at Shen.

"The wetter and colder I get, the more inclined I am to kill you a few times before taking your head," he called into the car. "Come on. Let's just finish this. If you lose your head at least you won't have to be out here in the wet and cold anymore."

"Not really a selling point," Shen called back. But he was moving now, so that was progress. Methos watched as Shen twisted in his seat to get his sword from the back seat of the car, then stared down at it for a few moments. Methos wondered if the Watchers keeping an eye on him could see him rolling his eyes.

Shen finally seemed to be unable to put if off any longer and slowly got out of the car. 

"I was happy at home," he told Methos. "I only ever really hunted people when they hurt someone I cared about. I didn't look for fights. I don't want to be the only one left."

"Well you could always just let me take your head," Methos offered. 

Shen leveled a look at him that could almost have taken his head on its own. Well, the Gathering had everyone on edge.

Methos raised his sword and Shen did the same and then it wasn't so much a matter of thinking as it was letting thousands of years of experience keep him moving.

* * *

This wasn't quite Joe's worst nightmare. His worst nightmare had been one of the worse Immortals out there making it to the end and actually winning. But watching two of his friends face off, that was close. It was too close. Shen hadn't been the pushover he'd seemed when he had been sitting in that car, refusing to get out, but he hadn't been able to deal with Methos' bizarre assortment of moves and tactics. Amy had given them a summary of the fight as soon as it was over. They'd seen the lightning, but she'd seen the fight.

Now, Methos and Duncan were on opposite sides of a valley, clearly aware of each other and unwilling to move just yet. Maybe they were resting up - both had recently faced difficult challenges and they had to know that this was the end. Maybe they even knew it was down to them, not to a stranger. Joe wasn't sure. They had eyes on both of them. 

"Why aren't they moving?" Joe's driver asked.

"Inertia," Billings muttered. "They'll move soon enough."

Joe picked up his bottle of whiskey. He'd been slightly worried that he would drink too much of it, but between himself and the assistants and Billings and the people in the Council truck, he really hadn't had much at all. Definitely not enough to dull his senses with the amount of adrenaline he had in his system right now. It was terrifying to think that this was it. And either way, he was going to lose someone he actually gave a shit about. Someone who'd helped him out more than a few times. It definitely wasn't one of the primary reasons for the ban on Watcher interaction with Immortals, but Joe was quickly coming to the conclusion that it was the one that mattered the most now.

That and any accusations of tampering or helping from Joe himself. 

"They're moving," Billings noted. "Let's go. We don't get a second shot at this."

They piled into the trucks and headed off over the hill to find the best spots for the last fight.

Somewhere nearby, the rest of the Watchers present had to be doing the same thing. Joe looked down at his laptop screen. Sure enough, their camera was moving. They had it on the dash in one of their trucks. 

"I think they know," Amy said from somewhere behind the camera. "Pierson looks like he's off to his execution. Which he might well be."

No one had any smart comeback to that. Joe included. He knew that Methos had once offered his head to Mac. He also knew that at the time, Mac had refused. Would he refuse now if Methos just told him to do it?

"Hey, everyone?" one of the assistants said. "Is this my machine having trouble or is there some sort of interference?"

Joe switched over to the drone they'd been using, but it was mostly static.

"Interference," a few other people said at the same time. "Maybe it's them?"

"Electrical discharge?" Joe guessed. "Think about it. These two guys are carrying the accumulated quickenings of almost every other Immortal out there."

One of the Council members finally spoke up. They'd been quiet - out of reverence for the moment or reticence to lower themselves to a discussion with the rank and file, Joe didn't know.

"We have only lost a handful, relatively speaking," she said from one of the Council trucks. "Whether to accidents or mortals. The amount of power in both of them must be staggering."

Pierson had taken Shen's car. He was trundling along but they could barely see him through the static. MacLeod was walking, because of course MacLeod was walking. He probably knew every hill and valley for miles around. Joe kicked himself for not checking to see just how much of this land Mac actually owned. It probably didn't matter.

"Whatever it is, it's playing merry hell with the equipment," Lipov said. "We might have to go analog for this. Film."

"Did anyone think to bring anything non-digital?" Billings asked.

"Of course we did," one of the Council members said. "We have cameras and film in the back of our cars. We thought something like this could happen, but we had hoped it wouldn't."

Joe frowned but didn't bother saying anything. It wasn't worth speaking up now. They could have mentioned it right at the start, before they'd loaded up and headed out into the middle of Scotland to watch this all go down. But they hadn't and here they were.

* * *

The air around him was charged. Duncan could feel it and smell it and even see it. If it hadn't meant the deaths of thousands of people, many of his friends, he might have thought it was pretty. But when electricity sparked in front of him from his fingers and the tip of his sword, all he could think of was Amanda and Rebecca and Connor and Richie, his friends and their teachers and their students and even their enemies. Almost every friend he'd ever had was in the air between him and Methos. He could tell it was him without needing to see him. The awareness of him crackled like fire. It shouldn't have come to this. Methos had been right to try and hide out. They could have forestalled this a little longer.

Or not. Maybe this was what was always going to happen.

Methos crested the hill nearby and stopped, waiting for him. Duncan looked up at him. He hadn't been able to take Methos' head before, but that had been years ago. That had been before the Gathering had reached the end.

* * *

Methos watched Duncan climb the hill to meet him. If he was going to lose his head to Duncan MacLeod, he was going to make him work for it first. But then, there was no guarantee that Duncan was going to win. Methos didn't plan on handing it to him. Not now. He couldn't do it. There wasn't another fight to run from or someone else to hide from. There wasn't anyone left. Just the two of them.

"We could try not to do this," Methos suggested as Duncan walked up. "Just walk away and ignore each other for the rest of our lives."

"Like we have been?" Duncan asked. "Me here and you wherever you've been?"

"Exactly," Methos said. "Screw the Gathering, the Game, the Prize. All of it. Who needs it?"

Duncan stared at him for a few moments. "You know we can't," he said finally. "If we could, we wouldn't be here right now."

"Worth a shot," Methos said. "For what it's worth, MacLeod, I'm sorry it came to this."

"Sure you are. You just wish we were doing this on a beach, somewhere tropical."

Methos laughed. "Do me a favor if you win? Take a vacation. Go somewhere warm. Relax."

Duncan nodded. "I will. You do the same. And find Joe and take care of him. I don't know what the Watchers will do once this is over."

"Of course," Methos agreed.

The air around them was thick with power. Methos felt like he could reach out and touch it, grab it, twist it into something new. Maybe if he won, he could do just that. Maybe he would. Maybe not. For now, he simply sighed and raised his sword. It was like cutting through fabric, electricity sparking along the blade as he moved. The same was happening with Duncan's katana. Methos could feel it on his skin. Even the rain seemed to be dissipating around them. 

"I'm not just handing this to you," Methos warned Duncan.

"Of course not," Duncan agreed. "I wouldn't expect you to. Not now."

"But no tricks," Methos assured him. "No guns." Of course he did have a couple of knives, but that wasn't the same. That was something Duncan should expect. As Immortal friendships went, they hadn't known each other for all that long. Some Immortals stayed friends for centuries and they'd really only had a couple of decades. But they knew each other well enough to know what to expect. They'd fought each other a couple of times - which Methos took as the sign of a true Immortal friendship. It was part of the process. Or maybe it was just him.

"Good," Duncan said. "Then we should do this. I'm glad I met you, Methos."

"You too, Duncan," Methos said. If the Watchers were listening, well, that was that out in the open. Probably no better time for it. "It's been an honor."

Methos looked at Duncan MacLeod and took a deep breath. Memories of other fights, both with Duncan and with others over the thousands of years, flicked through his head. He had never felt so ready for a fight. At least if he lost his head, he knew he'd lost to someone who would mourn him. That was something. Maybe it was everything.

As the air grew heavier with static, almost a glow around them, Duncan and Methos began the last duel of the Gathering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously this isn't the end. I've got ten more chapters coming after this. I promise, it's all going to be okay.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last fight of the Gathering happens. The outcome is not precisely what anyone expected, Methos and Duncan included.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said, I promise everything will be okay. This installment is, I believe, the shortest, but it gets us to a pretty important plot point.

Everyone had spaced out a bit to try and get different angles of the last fight. But it was useless. Even the analog cameras had something wrong with them. You looked through the lens and all you could see was a distorted shimmering glow, like a heat mirage but in the middle of a rainy Scottish hillside. The digital cameras were useless. They were just a staticky mess. Binoculars and telescopes were a little better, but they got the same view as the film cameras. 

"This is a disaster," one of the Council members was saying to Billings. Joe ignored them. Had they really never entertained the thought that maybe they wouldn't actually be able to see the end?

Not that he was happy about it. Far from it. He was pissed, if he was going to be honest. He'd put too much of his life into the Watchers, into documenting Immortals and their lives, into Duncan MacLeod himself, to not get to see this now. But it looked like the Gathering, or whatever power it was that Immortals possessed, didn't care about that. 

They were still recording, of course. The interference and odd phenomena alone were something to document. If nothing else, it would give the research staff who analyzed the oddities that popped up around Immortals something new to look at and theorize about. They put out papers every so often and Joe would skim them and then skip to the conclusions to see if they'd actually figured anything out or were still just guessing. Most of the time it was guessing, but it was interesting guessing.

Every once in a while they could see a more distinct shape emerge and they'd all perk up and hope to see just how the fight was progressing. At one point it had looked like Methos had been winning. They'd noted that he now had a shorter blade in his other hand. Joe hadn't been surprised. Neither had Amy. Billings had commented that Robards often did the same. Joe knew Mac had practiced with that sort of technique, but he didn't prefer it.

Now though, it was all just a blur of electricity and rain and shimmering air. 

"Was that MacLeod?" Lipov asked as someone's blade sliced through the air and they heard it connect with something decidedly not metallic. Someone had gotten a good hit in.

"I don't know," Joe admitted. "I couldn't tell if it was the katana or not."

Looking at the blades was turning out to be easier than trying to figure out who was who out there. Not that it was actually easy. The blades weren't the same, but at a distance, the fight moving fast, with the visibility issues they were having, it could be hard to tell what they'd just seen.

"That was Pierson," Amy said. "I saw the knife."

But it didn't actually tell them anything. It was impossible. 

Joe held up his binoculars and watched. Eventually, not too far from now, one of his friends would be dead and the other would have more power than any other Immortal had ever truly amassed. Watching now was just a matter of trying to predict what would happen. They couldn't change the outcome. They'd just have to live with being surprised.

The Council members were holding a hushed conference next to one of their trucks. The assistants and drivers were scattered around, some resigned to watching what amounted to nothing, others determined to try and find a way to cut through the interference to get a clear picture. 

Joe was just going to wait. They'd finished off the whiskey already and Amy had given him the last of her coffee. He took a sip of it and looked back down at the fight just in time to see a larger-than-usual bolt of electricity arc between what had to be Methos and MacLeod. A loud crack of thunder sounded through the valley nearby and everyone watching jumped. 

Another bolt hit, this one even bigger. Then another and another. The glow around the fight had brightened and seemed to be growing larger. Lightning sparked out of it in skeletal arms. 

They still couldn't see who it was who had won. 

The lightning kept coming, on and on and on. It was a full thunderstorm localized in a few square meters around the last surviving Immortal in the whole world. 

Joe didn't even realize there were tears in his eyes until his binoculars slipped and he had to wipe them off. At some point in the past couple of minutes the rain had stopped, but he could probably still claim his face was wet because of it.

They were all frozen in place, final witnesses to the Gathering, waiting for a clear view of the winner.

Except it didn't happen. The glowing cloud around the victor hadn't gotten any smaller with the end of the lightning. If anything, it seemed to be spreading. Joe frowned and put down his binoculars to see just how big it had gotten and was more than a little alarmed to realize it had almost reached them. 

"What the hell is this?" one of the Council members whispered. "This isn't what happens."

"It _is_ what happens," Joe snapped. "Because it's happening, and this is the only time it's ever happened."

The electricity was enough to raise the hair on the back of Joe's neck now. He frowned and took a step forward, reaching out a hand to it. It was like static electricity, like being zapped when you touched a doorknob on a winter day, but all over his hand. It stung a little, but didn't actually hurt. He was about to walk further into it when it shifted, seeming to twist into tendrils that snaked outwards from the site of the duel and spread off behind them and beyond, out into the world.

As the glow left the area, apparently headed elsewhere, or everywhere, Joe and the rest of the Watchers looked out towards where they all fully expected to see one headless body and one man standing.

But no one was standing. There on the grass, with no visible evidence of anything that had happened except some well-trodden ground, were two men, laid out, heads most definitely attached to their bodies.

No one seemed to know what to say. That this was impossible was a given. A quickening had happened. The Gathering had happened.

Everyone with a camera had it trained on the two bodies lying in the grass, but no one was moving. Joe looked over at Amy and saw that she was frozen in place, staring at the scene in front of them. 

"Amy," he called. "Let's get out there." 

She looked up and his voice seemed to have snapped her out of her shock. She hurried over and got into the driver's seat of the nearest truck. Joe swung himself up into the passenger's seat and they took off, leaving the rest of the Watchers behind.

They were just reaching Methos and MacLeod when one of them moved.

"Thank God," Joe muttered. "At least one of them's alive."

Methos was slowly sitting up when they parked. Just a few feet away from him, Duncan MacLeod shoved himself up from the ground.

"Are you two trying to give me a heart attack?" Joe demanded. It was, he realized, something his mother had said on a regular basis when he was a kid. "What the hell happened out here?"

"It's nice to see you too, Joe," Methos commented as he got to his feet. His sword was nearby and he glanced at it, then quickly grabbed it and tucked it into his coat. MacLeod was doing the same thing. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Joe noted this and wondered if it was just habit that made them do it.

"Dawson," MacLeod said, smiling at him. "I knew you'd be here. It's good to see you."

"Yeah, it's great to see you too!" Joe snapped. "But throw me a bone here, guys! What happened?"

Methos and MacLeod looked at each other and something seemed to pass between them, but then they both just shrugged.

"We fought," Methos said.

"But who won?" Amy demanded. "No offense intended, but one of you should be a head shorter. Literally."

"I don't know," Methos told her. "It's… I don't remember."

Joe and Amy looked over at MacLeod, who shrugged again. He was looking around at the hills nearby.

"I don't remember either," he told them vaguely. "Methos, we should get going."

Methos followed his look, then nodded. "Yeah. I think you might be right."

"Why?" Amy asked. "What is this? What happened?"

Joe's phone rang just as Amy's started buzzing. They picked up at the same time.

"You two need to get back here. Now," one of the Council members said. "We have a situation."

"We know," Joe told her. "We've got both MacLeod and Pierson here, alive."

"That's not all we have," came Lipov's voice. "We've got reports coming in from London and Paris already. They're alive. All of them."

"All of who?" Amy asked. 

MacLeod and Methos were already walking away, apparently having decided to stick together through whatever was going on now.

"All of the Immortals," Billings told her. "All of them."

"How is that even possible?" Joe asked. "How do you know?"

"One of them used to own the London office," one of the Council members said. "He walked into the conference room and asked who they were and why they were in his house. He lost his head fifty years ago."

Joe looked over at Methos and MacLeod, who had stopped and were looking back at him. 

"What the hell did one of you do?" he asked them. "How could you bring back every Immortal?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this would be why this has quite a few more chapters instead of ending here.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not the beginning of the end, but the beginning of the aftermath. Methos and Duncan meet up with some old familiar faces and the Watchers try to scramble back into shape.

> "On Friday morning, joggers were surprised to find three men and two women asleep in the Seacouver botanical gardens. While the gardens have had issues with people camping in the trees before, there was no evidence of any camps and the people found did not appear to be homeless. They had also not attempted to hide themselves and were all found in plain view. The joggers who made the reports all said they attempted to wake the people from a distance. The women and one of the men woke immediately and appeared confused as to their whereabouts, then left before police could arrive. The remaining two men woke several moments later and reportedly began a heated discussion before also departing.
> 
> Reports of other similar events have been made to both police and the press. Police report that at least two years-old missing persons reports have been closed with the reappearance of the subjects of the reports, though the subjects claim they do not remember what happened or where they have been for the past several years. The Seacouver Tribune is dedicated to the ongoing investigation of these appearances. Please contact the Tribune or the Seacouver Police Department with any information you may have."  
-Lewis, Gerald. "Missing People Appear in Park" Seacouver Tribune.

Immediately following the end of the Gathering, it seemed as if Immortals were popping up everywhere. It was precisely the opposite of what everyone in the organization - not to mention the Immortals themselves - had expected. There was supposed to be one singular Immortal left, with an unknown prize bestowed upon them. Theories as to what the prize would be had ranged from incredible wisdom and insight to a variety of powers previously seen in individual Immortals on a smaller scale. Some had thought it possible that the winner would become some sort of demigod or something like one. Others had thought they'd simply get to live life in peace without any further threat of fighting. A small contingent had even posed the idea that the winner would become mortal, having ended the millennia-long Game.

No one had predicted that it would end with the final two competitors walking away seemingly unscathed. No one had predicted that all over the world Immortals long dead would appear out of nowhere and get up to ask what had happened, why they were there, what to do next. As it turned out, there were a lot of Immortals out there. And they had questions. Usually about why they were alive. 

The Watchers quickly found themselves in a position they had never even remotely anticipated: They had to decide whether to reveal themselves to Immortals and explain something they didn't actually understand.

As one might have expected, this did not sit well with the Council. Or with most of the field agents. Some of the researchers and archivists were delighted, but no one was asking them.

There was a full day when confusion reigned. Fortunately, it seemed that MacLeod and Pierson (Methos, some Watchers were saying now, though not all of them believed it) had started making calls when they'd gotten back to MacLeod's cottage. They'd called old friends and tried numbers they weren't sure would work. Joe watched it all. He'd told the Council and the rest of the crew who'd come to Scotland that he was going to stick with them and he'd call the Council with updates. The old rules couldn't possibly apply now. It was a brand new world.

"So what do we do now?" he asked when both of his friends had exhausted the numbers they knew.

"Good question, Joe," Methos said, grabbing a beer from MacLeod's fridge and popping it open. "It isn't as if we can explain this to everyone. What would we do? Hold an Immortal convention and then tell them all 'You're welcome, folks! We don't know what we did but you've got your lives back! Enjoy!'"

"Word of mouth seems like the best bet," MacLeod said. He still seemed dazed by the whole thing, even hours after the fact. 

"Well, if that's how it's going to be," Methos said as he paced around the cottage, "then we should get going back to civilization. Back to Paris. At the very least, there's a good chance that Amanda's there."

"Plenty of other people there too," MacLeod muttered.

"We won't know until we get there," Methos said. "It isn't like either of us know how far this went. I'm quite looking forward to seeing if anyone remembers teaching me. I don't remember a bit of it."

Joe watched them for a while. He'd had his own phone conversations once they'd gotten to the cottage. Sure enough, plenty of Watchers were looking to him for answers, as though being MacLeod's Watcher gave him some magical insight into an unexplained situation. All it actually gave him was a headache. He was sure Amy was getting an even worse version of it from anyone who wanted to know just what the hell was up with Pierson and if he really was Methos.

"I need to get back there, myself," Joe finally told them. "The Watchers are in an uproar right now."

"I'll just bet they are," Methos said before finishing his beer. "Well, come on, Mac. Let's get you packed up and back to Paris. My apartment's still paid up through the end of the year."

* * *

They'd dropped Joe off at a cafe to meet with some other Watchers and Methos had insisted on going to see if he could find Marcus Constantine, of all people. Duncan had warned him about Nefertiri, but Methos had just told him he knew about the situation and he'd be fine. 

As for Duncan, he had parked his car and walked a few blocks towards a place that he'd avoided in more recent years. It had once been the first spot he visited every time he got back into the city. He'd gone there every time he'd needed advice or just some time to reflect. But then the Hunters had shown up and taken Darius away and the church had no longer been the refuge it once was.

He didn't even know if Darius would be there. Why would he be? It wasn't like anyone had gotten Darius' quickening. It had been lost when Horton had murdered him.

A few blocks away, Duncan felt someone nearby. It was strange, feeling it but not feeling that almost irresistible drive to fight that the Gathering had brought on. He could tell it was some ways away too. That seemed off somehow, like he shouldn't be able to sense something that particular still. But then, he'd been away from others for so long, what was normal now? He paused after another block. He was definitely getting closer, and he could tell that there was more than one Immortal nearby, in the direction of the church at least. He stood there and looked down the street. He knew there were Immortals in that church. There had to be. He could sense them. But he couldn't pick out Darius among them. The idea that others might be there but Darius wouldn't be was a little more than he wanted to think about.

Two minutes later, Duncan frowned and forced himself to start moving again. He was there or he wasn't. If he wasn't, Duncan would just have to accept that. But as he got closer he became more and more certain that yes, Darius would be there. He had to be. Somehow.

As Duncan opened the door he had no idea what he would see when he walked in. He wasn't actually expecting anything. What he found was an assortment of Immortals seated in the pews and standing and talking in pairs, and Darius walking out from his rooms with another priest.

"Duncan," Darius said, smiling. "I thought you would come. It seems we have had a miracle."

"We've had something," Duncan said, quickly closing the gap between himself and Darius and hugging him.

Darius clapped him on the back and then pulled away a little. "Come, let's talk. We can catch up for a bit. I just put on some tea."

It seemed that the priest who'd taken over when Darius died hadn't had much trouble accepting the return of his predecessor. Or at least he didn't seem terribly fazed by it. Duncan followed Darius into the rooms he'd spent so many hours in, playing chess and talking. They'd been rearranged somewhat, but were still similar enough that Duncan relaxed, just a bit.

"The others out there," Darius said as he went to check on the tea. "They're from all over. Two came in after we all woke up, but the rest were here when I woke myself. We all recall our deaths, or at least the moments leading up to them. What we all have in common is that we lost our heads to mortals. Interesting, don't you think?"

Duncan nodded and looked around for a chess board. They'd always had good discussions over chess, but maybe the current resident here wasn't much for the game. "It is interesting," he agreed. "Darius, this might all be my fault. I don't know."

"Your fault, Duncan?" Darius said, laughing. "How could this be your fault?"

"The Gathering. It happened," Duncan explained. He took a seat and watched Darius make tea. "It was just me and a friend of mine. And we fought. I know we fought. But then it's a blur. I don't remember what happened. All I remember is that the air was glowing around us, and then it was over and I felt drained when I woke up. He was still there too, just like me. And then we found out others were back somehow. I think it was one of us. I just don't know who, or how, or why."

Darius brought the tea over and took a seat across from Duncan. He poured tea for them both and then carefully set the kettle down on a stone trivet. He sat for a while, holding his cup, thinking.

"You say the Gathering happened? And you're certain it was actually the Gathering? The real one? Your cousin had an experience he thought was the Gathering…"

Duncan shook his head. "No. I know that whole story. I should… I should find Connor. If you're back, if everyone is back, he should be here too."

"He probably is," Darius agreed. "This friend of yours. Does he have any better ideas?"

"Not that he's shared," Duncan told him. "He said the same thing I did, but he said it before I told him what I remembered. One of us must have won. One of us must have killed the other, then somehow used the Prize to bring everyone back."

Darius considered that while he blew on his tea and looked around the room. "I can think of worse things to do with the Prize," he said at last. "There will be consequences," he warned. "But overall, one of you apparently wanted us all to live. I can't find fault with the sentiment."

"All I can think of is people whose heads I took to protect others," Duncan admitted. "What if they're back too?"

"If they are back, then you deal with it," Darius told him. He'd determined that his tea was cool enough and took a sip. "How you deal with it is up to you. This is a remarkable chance you - or your friend - have given yourself and the rest of us. An opportunity to try again. A chance to live more of our lives. To do more."

Duncan nodded. "There's plenty to do," he said. "I can't deny that."

Darius smiled. "Nor should you. Go. Talk to others. Let me know what you learn. I'm curious to see what limits this all has."

"So am I," Duncan agreed. "I promise I'll let you know what I find out."

* * *

Checking in with people was the first thing Methos did. He'd lost a lot of friends over the years and making sure they were accounted for was important. He'd also had a lot of enemies over the years, so the second thing he did was to get to his apartment and lock all the doors. Fortunately, it was a relatively new place. None of the people he was worried about knew this address. Three of them were in Bordeaux. Or at least he assumed that's where they were. From what Joe had reported back to them before they'd dropped him off, it seemed as if Immortals had appeared either close to where they'd lost their heads or on holy ground nearby. There was no word yet as to whether there was any rhyme or reason to who'd come back. It couldn't be everyone. Could it?

Maybe it could. Methos went to the safe in his office and unlocked it. There was a letter on its way to Joe right now, telling him the location of the safe and its combination. He'd figured if he lost, Joe should have it all. If he won, then he'd have cleared out the safe, which is what he was doing. Some of his journals were here. Others were in storage. The safe also had a letter with information about Methos' storage units and a keyring with their keys. Methos pocketed the keyring and the letter and then took out some of the journals. They needed to be moved, one way or another, and there were some things he wanted to check on.

First order of business was looking up his notes on the Gathering. It had been a bit of a side project during the years he'd been supposedly studying himself. He'd had to do something to keep busy, after all. It didn't take him all that much time to falsify information and alter chronicles and he'd needed something to fill the time. So he'd gotten down to researching the Gathering and the Prize and all the various theories on it.

There were plenty of stories, of course. Everyone had a pet theory to put forth on the matter. But the ones he'd focused on were ones supposedly passed along from teacher to student through the centuries. Sure, he was the oldest living Immortal. That didn't mean he'd always been the oldest. He sure as hell hadn't been listening to tales of the end of the Game when he'd been young. He'd been ignoring his elders and haring off with Kronos to take over the known world. Like every adolescent ever, he'd been more concerned with himself at the time than with learning things that would help him in the future. It seemed that much was a universal truth.

With the journals laid out on his desk, Methos sat down to look through them. He'd made a few indexes over the years, but laziness had crept in as time went on and they weren't complete. He was just going to have to skim.

An hour in, Methos had found a reference to stories about the Prize being a wish, the Prize being the ability to will anything into existence, and the Prize being a chance to alter reality. Really, those were all very similar when you got down to it. But he didn't have the original stories here. They were in the Watcher archives, and he suspected they weren't about to let him just walk in and sit down for some research. 

Or maybe they would. Who knew, right?

Except he also didn't want to leave his apartment. A year ago he'd realized that he was coming to a point where one way or another he was going to get to stop fighting. He was either going to lose his head, and it would be over, or he'd win, and it would be over that way too. Now here he was, with everything started up again. It was disheartening, to say the least.

Two hours in, when he'd also found references to some stories about the Prize being world domination and the chance to live as a mortal, Methos was beyond relieved when his phone rang.

"Joe?" he said, seeing the familiar name on his screen. "Have they decided to string you up or make you the new Director?"

"Neither," Joe told him. "The Council's all sequestered and everyone's starting to get antsy. I figured I'd check in. There's a chance they're going to actually want to talk to you."

Methos laughed and shoved his chair away from his desk to lean back. "Imagine that. Here I was thinking we were right back to where we started, but maybe we'll see change yet."

"Maybe," Joe agreed. "Amy Zoll'll probably come banging on your door eventually. She's glaring at me right now for taking away the element of surprise."

"Banging on my door is so uncivilized," Methos told him. "Put me on speaker and she can just tell me how disappointed she is in all of this."

"You already are," Joe told him.

"Oh, far from it!" came Amy's voice from somewhere in the room with Joe. "This is all fascinating. But we need to know who won and why this happened!"

Methos sighed. Then he sighed again. Then he rubbed at his eyes and pulled himself back to his desk. "Do we really want to do this now?" he asked. "How about this? I answer some questions to the best of my ability, you tell me what's going on out there, and then we share some notes?"

"Well?" Joe asked, apparently to Amy.

There was no answer for a long pause. Methos had known Amy back when he'd been a Watcher and she was a good archivist, a decent field agent, and a tenacious researcher. He wasn't surprised they'd appointed her to deal with the mess he'd made. She'd always been fairly by-the-book, which he knew would have been important after he'd left. But now? Now everything was up in the air. And she wasn't the type to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Methos himself was offering to answer questions, well, he was fairly certain she wasn't going to decline.

"Sure," Amy said finally. "They can drum me out if they want, but I doubt they will. But we ask first."

"Of course," Methos said. He went back to his journals and made note of some things to ask while Amy came up with her first question.

"I guess you can't really tell us what happened?"

"A history of Immortality would take a while," Methos told her.

"Smartass. I mean in Scotland. The glowing air, the whole thing."

Methos smiled to himself. "I wish I could, and that is the truth. What did you see? All I could see was the glow and MacLeod and my own sword in front of me. It's amazing how your focus pulls in at a time like that."

"We saw that glow too," Joe told him. "It was swirling around you and Mac. It spread out a lot after we saw the quickening happen, but it was so thick we couldn't make out who'd won. Then it sort of shot out past us."

"And then you two were there on the ground," Amy added. "Alive. Do you feel any different now than you did before?"

"Yes," Methos told her. "The end of the Gathering, we were all so gorged on power it was almost tactile. I could feel it just under my skin. I could tell you if another Immortal was anywhere within a couple of miles. It's not still like that… not exactly. But it's not like before either. Something's different, but it's hard to quantify. It's not like I can take readings or anything." He paused and considered what he'd just said for a moment. "Please don't take that as an invitation to try."

"Of course not," Amy said quickly. "But that is interesting. It's almost as if some of it just got redistributed."

"But they're just… back," Joe said. "It's not like the power disappeared and created new Immortals or something. It brought back dead people. Complete with bodies."

"There are plenty of odd powers out there among us," Methos pointed out to him. "And the Gathering isn't exactly something we had a chance to document before now."

"Right," Amy sighed. "Does MacLeod remember anything?"

"Not that he told me. As far as I know, he remembers what I remember, and neither of us remember taking the other's head. He's probably out making the rounds, checking up on everyone he's ever lost," Methos told them. "Darius first. Speaking of which, is Darius back?"

"He is," Joe confirmed. "Along with a bunch of others. We're still trying to get agents back out into the field to do a census. It's a mess."

"I'll just bet it is," Methos said. "So, some questions of mine: Have we figured out any rhyme or reason to who's back?"

"I've got a few more questions," Amy told him. "But yes, as a matter of fact. Our going theory is that it's mostly people from the past couple of hundred years. We have yet to document anyone who lost their head further back than that, but we're still looking."

"Huh. Well, better for them I suppose," Methos sighed. There went any chance of him finding out about his own distant past. And if the bad were back along with the good, well, it was a crying shame he hadn't taken Kronos' head a long time ago. He could well be back now, fully aware of who'd orchestrated his fall and already forming plots of revenge on both Methos and MacLeod. Fantastic.

"The other interesting thing is that they seem to have shown up where they died, with a few exceptions" Joe added. "Darius is in his church, which makes sense. But then a handful of others showed up there too. The priest there is one of ours and he reported back right away. Seems everyone who woke up there died to mortals."

"So they reappeared on holy ground," Methos muttered. "Huh. Anyone dead again yet?"

"Of course," Amy said. "Fights broke out in a few places we could document. Our best guess at the moment is that we've already lost ten since they came back."

"Well, I wish you luck sorting it out," Methos told them. "Now, I've got some information for you that you might want to look into. I've been going over my notes on the Gathering. You'll have to go to the archives, but you'll want to look into a few of the folklore compendiums for stories told by Immortals to each other. I've got notes from the Middle Eastern and African collections, as well as the Scandinavian Peninsula, of all places. They should all have some interesting and apparently fairly on-target tales about what the Gathering will be like and what the Prize might be. In my infinite wisdom, I didn't note who told the stories and to whom, but I'm sure at least some names are in there. They might be back."

"The archives are closed right now," Joe told him. "But we'll find a way. Listen, Methos, you need anything?"

"Nothing you can give me," Methos told him. He closed his journals and stacked them neatly on top of each other. "Peace of mind? Assurance that people I'd rather have never seen again won't show up?"

"Sorry, no dice," Joe told him. "Keep in touch, okay? The landscape's changed. I think we'll need each other from now on."

"I suspect you're not wrong, Joe," Methos said before hanging up. 

Amy would go storm the archives. That was her sort of thing, Methos suspected. Joe would start asking around. The Watchers liked records and tallies and statistics. They'd gather the data if they could get their shit together fast enough.

* * *

Duncan stayed in Darius' church for several hours. It seemed to be a magnet for the newly revived Immortals in the city. They just kept wandering in. He sat in a pew at the back of the church and watched them enter, relieved to be on holy ground when everything was so strange. Some of them were from decades or even a century back or more. Others had died during the lead-up to the end of the Gathering. Still others he recognized from earlier - Immortals he'd faced off against and killed. 

Knowing they were back, he'd wondered just how many battles he would have to re-fight. It wasn't as if he'd sought all of them out himself. But then a few of them walked into the church and merely nodded to him. Whether it was that they were on holy ground or that they all knew that things were different, that perhaps old grudges didn't all have to be carried into the present, he wasn't sure.

When the day turned into night and some of the gathered Immortals started to talk about going out to find somewhere to eat, Duncan slipped out and just started walking. It was a cool night but people were still out and about, going on with their lives as if nothing at all had happened. He figured there'd be news reports about the mysterious appearances around the city, but Immortals had to be at least decent at blending in. The people who'd appeared would find a way to disappear just as easily and either leave the city or manage to fit in as if they'd always been there. It was strange to think that they hadn't been.

There were a handful of people out there that he needed to find. People who'd been gone from the world because of him. People he had no idea how to track down now. He didn't even know if they were part of this whole bizarre revival. But he had to hold out hope that somewhere out there was Richie. Sean. Connor. Maybe they'd make it to Paris. Or maybe they'd just go somewhere else. It wasn't like he had any guarantee that they'd want to see him. He wouldn't blame either Richie or Sean for just walking away.

Without realizing it, Duncan had wandered far enough that if the barge had been where he'd always moored it, he would have been home. But the barge was gone, sold when Duncan had moved to Scotland. He was standing above the quay, looking down at the water, when he felt someone else nearby. Or rather, not that nearby, but drawing closer. It was an oddly specific feeling, like it had a little more strength to it than others. On the other hand, it wasn't making him start to itch for a sword in his hand. He glanced around, looking for who was there and spotted Methos' car approaching.

"No barge?" Methos asked after he'd parked and got out. "Moved or sold?"

"Sold," Duncan admitted. "I didn't think I'd be coming back to Paris any time soon."

"Figured you'd mope around Scotland if you won? Forever alone?" Methos asked. "Because I can picture it. It's very _you_."

"As a matter of fact, I thought I'd lose to you," Duncan told him. "You're dangerous when you're desperate. And we were all desperate."

Methos didn't dispute that. They stood there together for a few minutes, watching the boats go by. 

"Good god, you're doing it now," Methos muttered after a while. "You're somehow moping in Scotland while you're in Paris. How do you manage it?"

"Methos, this is a nightmare!" Duncan hissed. "How can you be so relaxed about it?"

"Because I stopped to think about it, then I _stopped thinking about it_," Methos told him. "Not that I've forgotten that I probably have at least six very motivated homicidal maniacs looking to kill me, but if I think too hard about that, I'll be on a plane to the Bahamas within the hour. And there's too much to do here."

Duncan turned to stare at him. Methos steadfastly ignored him until Duncan had to actually speak.

"Now I know you can't possibly really be the Methos I knew. Taking responsibility for things? Sticking around when things are hard?"

"Hey! I stuck around before," Methos protested. "In fact, I showed up specifically to help out a few times. Who took care of Kristin? Excuse me? And she's on the list of people who probably want my head, so, you're welcome."

Duncan couldn't really argue with that. And Methos had stuck around with O'Rourke, and Joe had told Duncan about Morgan Walker. He'd even stuck around for Kronos, manipulating the whole situation to end the way he wanted. So okay, Methos didn't always run. And if Duncan was going to be honest with himself, he was the one who'd run off to Scotland at the end of the Gathering. Methos had come to him to end it all. 

"There are so many people I don't want to see again," Duncan admitted. "And so many I need to find. How will our friends find us if they've been gone so long we're not where we used to be?"

Methos shrugged. "I don't know. Constantine is back, by the way. I didn't see Nefertiri but she's not one to let a little thing like a resurrection throw her."

"You know her?" Duncan asked.

Methos nodded. "We'd met in Egypt, once upon a time. I heard about Marcus bringing her here. Could have told him it was a bad idea but I didn't find out until after it was done."

Anyone could have told Marcus that bringing Nefertiri back was a bad idea. She'd been dead for two thousand years and her anger had been as fresh as the day she'd died. But Duncan figured maybe now she'd at least be able to move on without actively hunting Marcus down.

"You're thinking you've got so many things to re-do," Methos said, glancing over at Duncan. "That it's all your responsibility."

"Isn't it?" Duncan asked. "It doesn't matter if it was you or me. It might as well have been either of us. If we don't know, it falls to whichever of us is willing to take the blame."

"Or the credit," Methos noted. "Are there plenty of assholes with their heads reattached? Probably, yes. Am I looking forward to meeting up with Caspian again? Definitely not. But Darius is back, Mac. Darius and Marcus and I'm sure Amanda is too, and Robert and Gina, and everyone else you've ever lost. Well, maybe not everyone. Seems like there's a two hundred year warranty on heads, give or take a decade or two. That's still a lot of people. And some of them are people I've missed. Some of them are people I know you missed."

Duncan considered that. Methos wasn't wrong. It was just hard to even feel good about the people he'd missed when some of them were his fault. He looked over at Methos, who had slouched himself against the wall overlooking the quay. Maybe he had some like that too. It was tough to get a straight answer out of the old man sometimes.

"So listen," Methos said finally. "Obviously you don't have a barge to sleep in now, and I have a guest room. You're welcome to it, assuming you don't sulk the whole time."

"I can get a hotel…" Duncan started, but was stopped by Methos' glare. "What? I can."

"Look, I'm trying to repay you for crashing on your couch so many times," Methos told him. "And by the way, I at least have an actual bed for you to use, so that's even better. I'm an excellent host, I assure you."

Duncan had to give that at least a small laugh. "Sure, just until I see about my own place," he said. "Or a new boat. I feel like I should have something here, in case people…" he trailed off as both he and Methos turned to find the source of Immortal presence that had just hit them. No one was there. Not at first. But then, Methos had said there was a two hundred year cap on this thing, apparently. Maybe whatever had gone out there to bring everyone back had left them with a little extra to themselves.

Duncan and Methos both looked back at the water and waited. Duncan assumed Methos could feel whoever it was getting closer. At least, if he was sensing things the same as Duncan was. If they truly had had the same experience in Scotland.

"MacLeod, my lad! How wondrous is this!" came a painfully familiar voice after another minute. "And who do we have here? It's Doctor Adams! My goodness!"

Duncan turned and stared. Fitz. It was Hugh Fitzcairn. It felt like he was seeing a ghost, but no. A ghost wouldn't be rushing over to him and clapping him on the back, then reaching past him to shake Methos' hand.

"I had no idea you two were acquainted," Fitz was saying to Duncan as Methos hid a laugh.

"We are. I didn't know you two knew each other," Duncan said, more to Methos than Fitz.

"Only in passing," Methos said. "Overlapping circles over the years."

"You were at that party in Venice," Fitz told him. "The one with that hideous ice sculpture."

Methos laughed. "The one that was supposed to be a lion but it looked like a poodle."

"The very one! Duncan, my friend, did I ever tell you about that party? It was, at the same time, both outstanding and horrendous. It was magical. Come, boys, let's go have a drink and I can tell you all about it and you can catch me up on the past few decades!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe and Amy head to the archives and Methos and Duncan try to settle back into their lives, even if that does apparently mean taking challenges again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a relatively short section but it didn't really feel right to break it up further on.
> 
> I wrote this as a NaNoWriMo project, and I wasn't really thinking of chapter breaks when I wrote it and restructuring it now just isn't going to happen, so here we are.

Amazingly, no one seemed to care when Amy and Joe and a few other Watchers walked into the archives and started to dig around. On the contrary, they were aided by no fewer than three assistant archivists upon their arrival. The archives had been closed, ostensibly to allow the archivists time to finish up any outstanding chronicles. Only one chronicle was supposed to be still active post-Gathering, after all. Given the situation, that was no longer the case. As the assistants went to fetch things for them, Joe asked the head archivist if the Council had told them any specifics of what had happened.

"Oh, no, the Council didn't tell us anything," the head archivist, Thea, told Joe and Amy. "Lipov told us he couldn't turn in Shen's last chronicle. Then Billings said the same about Robards. We got a bunch of requests to reopen files. So we asked the Council and they said they'd get back to us."

"Of course they did," Joe muttered. "Not like it's important to tell the people keeping all of our records."

"They are fairly busy right now," Amy pointed out. "They have to recall field agents from all over the place and get them out to take stock of who's back. And they have to make a decision on how public we go. The news is already talking."

"I know," Joe told her. "But come on. They should have at least said something."

They'd already filled Thea and the other archives staff in on the basics, then asked about the books Methos had mentioned. Two of the others were going looking for the books they needed while Joe and Amy sat with Thea and talked about what they knew so far. Thea was typing as they talked, entering everything they said into an ancient computer Joe was fairly certain he'd seen in here back when he'd been at the Academy. 

The archives weren't just one room. They were a whole labyrinthine set of rooms and hallways and closets, packed into the basement of one of the Watchers' oldest properties. It hadn't been intended for this purpose, but they'd made it work over the years, taking over the basements and storage spaces of some of the neighboring buildings as the Watchers had bought those too. But while it worked, it also meant that finding anything was best left to the experts.

The first archivist came hurrying back, five volumes in his hands.

"I pulled these ones since they seemed the most relevant," he told them. "Folklore from Immortal sources regarding Immortal matters, passed as oral history. I know you mentioned Africa and the Middle East, but I also grabbed the Asian subcontinent. There was a lot of drift there for a while."

Joe nodded and took the first book off the stack. It looked almost new. Thea seemed to notice him looking it over.

"We had to have some things rebound," she told him. "Not all of the older books were written on archival quality paper. The scraps they made journals out of sometimes are just amazing, but not always great for the longevity of the piece."

"I also took the liberty of pulling out a few books I know mention Methos," the young man told them, nodding to Amy. "If Pierson is who he says…"

"He didn't say it," Amy pointed out. "MacLeod did. But he didn't refute it either, so we'll run with it for now. Anyhow, thank you. I didn't go too far back in the folklore. I stuck to chronicles, mostly."

"Most people do," Thea told them. "Pierson used to come look at the folklore sometimes, but he said he was just curious."

Amy let out a soft groan. "We're going to have to check it all. Or just call him and ask what he changed. You know he changed things?" 

"In the _archives_?" Thea asked, eyes wide and furious. "I'll kill him. He'll live, but I'll kill him."

"He altered his chronicles," Amy sighed. "I've found a few discrepancies. Maybe he didn't touch the archives. I expect he has a little more respect for the rest of the archives than he did for his own chronicles?"

Joe was already shaking his head. "You don't know him very well. Respect is for other people."

Thea picked up the first of the Methos books just as the second assistant came up with the rest of the records they'd been told to find.

"He did send you here," Thea commented as she looked through the book. "If he'd done much damage here one would think he might not send you looking for it." She was carefully paging through, closely examining the writing in it whenever it mentioned Methos. "I'm going to have to go through these to check for alterations, but it looks like I would expect," she said after choosing several random portions to inspect.

"I guess that's something," Amy sighed. "Let's see what we can find. He said he has his own research but he had only made general notes on the contents, not specifics."

"Shoddy research then," Thea said with a sniff. "It's unthinkable that he was in our midst all that time, learning about how we do things, watching us."

Joe laughed. He couldn't hold it in. Not that Thea was entirely wrong, but that she was so incensed over being watched was, frankly, hilarious. He couldn't wait to share that little tidbit with Methos, would would probably laugh his ass off.

"Well he was!" Thea protested. She scowled at Joe and he would have been duly cowed by it if he hadn't been forged in the fires of facing off against regional managers and supervisors and the damn Council itself once or twice. The head archivist was scary, yes, but Joe had dealt with worse.

"I'm just saying, you're complaining about being watched by one of the people we watch."

Amy smacked his shoulder.

"Hey! I'm just saying it's funny! Anyhow, we should try to get him in here. It's not like he's going to learn anything to help him in the Gathering. He might well have already won once." And Joe had a gut feeling that neither Methos nor MacLeod knew who had won. They'd both seemed genuinely confused about the whole situation. Methos had a good poker face, sure, but this hadn't been that. Keeping a straight face was one thing, but this had been a large amount of confusion and not a small amount of irritation. Joe supposed that made sense, given the number of people who'd now be after him. He'd be irritated too. He _was_ irritated too. He was supposed to be able to retire now, take a vacation or something. Even if MacLeod had won, there were plenty of people who'd lined up to keep tabs on the winner. Everyone had wanted to get a chance to see who won and what they did with it. 

"He's not coming down here," Thea said. "Not now. I'm not saying we shouldn't talk to him - the things he could tell us… provided he was honest. I'm just saying, I don't want him in my archives."

"We'll do lunch," Joe told her. "Let's just look at these records he pointed us to for now. At the very least we can find out if there was anything worth looking into any deeper."

"And he did make a good point," Amy said as she took two of the books and found a seat. "It's entirely possible that some of the people who told or heard these stories directly are alive again. Once we get a better handle on who came back, we can cross-reference that list with the names here."

* * *

Methos left Duncan and Fitz catching up over drinks and headed back towards his apartment. Duncan was the sort of person who made friends just about everywhere. It was amazing, really. Methos made friends too, but his friends tended to have rougher edges than Duncan's. They weren't necessarily the sort of people you stayed friends with over the centuries. Or they were mortal and there was no chance in hell that he'd ever see them again. 

It was entirely possible for Duncan to walk down any street in Paris and meet up with someone he'd once been friends with. Methos was quite certain that he wouldn't be even nearly so lucky. Walking down any street and meeting up with someone he'd once killed or tried to kill was more likely. And there were quite a few streets to walk down between where he was and home.

He'd almost made it without incident when he felt someone nearby. Of course he felt someone nearby. The city was crawling with newly returned Immortals. Some of them would have left already, self-preservation instincts sending them fleeing a city with more Immortals then it could comfortably hold. If he was lucky, this would just be some poor confused sap who'd lost their head back in 1994 and needed to learn about smartphones. But there was a delay. That was something he could have done without. It had taken a few years of the Gathering for the power he'd taken in to start really letting him sense people from more of a distance and it had been both useful and highly irritating. He definitely could have done with that part ending with the Gathering itself. But it seemed that was not to be the case. So he just kept walking, aware that he was drawing closer and closer and closer to some other Immortal who had inconveniently placed themselves between Methos and home.

"You know what I love about this whole second time around thing?" a man asked from down the street. "There are just so many of you to kill. I barely have to even try."

Methos silently cursed whatever deity had seen fit to make Immortals in the first place. This had to be some sort of horrible afterlife where he was cursed to fight forever.

"See, you'd think that," Methos told him. "Except I made it to the end. How about you?"

"Of course you did," the man said. "That's what the last one said too, but I doubt he was telling the truth. He was barely competent at best and his quickening was almost non-existent. Now you, you look like that sort, but you might have some juice to you. If you're not, I suppose I'll just have to wait for a third chance."

Methos glared at him, then pulled out his sword. "I really wanted this to be over," he said. "So let's make this quick."

* * *

Ever the one to land on his feet, Fitz had already managed to find a place to stay. He'd assured Duncan that he'd be fine - if he encountered Kalas he wasn't about to let him win a second time - and made his way off to his new home.

Duncan had checked Methos' address and headed in that direction. He found the place easily enough, navigating the last several blocks by Immortal presence alone, and let himself in. Someone was inside, but that someone didn't come to the door with a sword and Duncan couldn't help but be cautious. It was probably Methos, sure. It felt like Methos, somehow. But a Methos who didn't immediately meet him with a blade was suspicious. 

"If that's not Duncan MacLeod out there, I warn you I have a gun and very few reasons not to use it," Methos' voice called from somewhere down a hall off the living room. "I have already taken one head tonight. I'm not particularly opposed to another, aside from the mess."

"It's me," Duncan called back. "What do you mean you took a head tonight?"

"Oh thank goodness," Methos sighed. Duncan could hear water sloshing around and when he peered down the hall he could see steam curling out from under what he assumed was the bathroom door. He stopped outside it and leaned against the wall.

"Well?" he asked. "Someone challenged you?"

"Of course someone challenged me," Methos said. "I assure you I am in no way interested in seeking out fights at the moment. Some pompous jackass. Didn't get a name. The Watchers will figure it out, I'm sure. Apparently he'd been hunting younger Immortals who'd died early before and taking their heads before they got their bearings this time. Why are some of us such pricks?"

The idea of someone taking advantage of confused young Immortals and picking them off with no real explanation almost made Duncan wish he could fight the man himself. Except apparently Methos already had, and had won. 

"He wasn't exclusive," Methos said. "He claimed the last one he'd taken said he'd made it to the end. No clue if it was Robards or Shen, but it could well just have been a bluff from someone who knew enough to say so but not enough to fight. I don't know. I don't actually care."

More water splashed in the bathroom, then Duncan heard Methos walking over to the door. When it opened, Methos was standing there wearing a pair of ratty sweatpants and a sweater Duncan was fairly certain had once been his. He had his sword in one hand and a gun in the other. 

"I'm putting them away," Methos assured him. "Well, the sword needs cleaning, but the gun can go away for now." 

Duncan followed him through the apartment into the living room. He hadn't turned on any lights when he'd come in and now Methos flipped them all on, revealing the apartment to be sparsely furnished but homey enough. The couch looked comfortable at least, and there was a pile of blankets at one end of it.

"Gets cold in here sometimes. There's a draft," Methos explained as he got out his cleaning kit from a cabinet near the kitchen. "And I'd see a blanket in a store and think 'I could use another, it's so drafty in my place' and now look. I'll drown in blankets."

He sat down in a huge armchair by the couch and started to work on his sword. Duncan took a seat on the couch and watched him. It occurred to him that he ought to clean his katana. He'd taken it out when he hadn't been sure it was Methos in the apartment. Now he set it on the coffee table and glanced over. 

"Mind if I borrow some things?" he asked.

Methos looked up from his work and shrugged. "I seem to recall once telling you my house was your house. Feel free. There's more in the cabinet."

Duncan got up and went over to take a look. Opening the cabinet's doors revealed several knives, the gun, a smaller sword he'd never seen before, and a variety of cleaning and mending materials.

"Were you ever a blacksmith?" he asked Methos, turning to look at him.

Methos shook his head. "Not really. Not professionally. I know some basics, but not enough to make my own weapons. How about you?"

Duncan shrugged. "Same as you. Maybe we should take classes or something."

"Oh yes," Methos laughed as he worked. "Blacksmithing 101 down at Immortal U."

"People do still do it," Duncan told him as he came back to the couch, cleaning supplies in hand. "And they're not all Ren Fest types. But even that would be useful."

Methos shrugged and focused on his sword for a bit. Duncan watched him a little more, then went to work on his own. They sat in silence for a while, each absorbed in the familiar task of caring for the weapons that kept them alive. 

Methos was still working when Duncan finished, but he looked up as Duncan went to put his sword away.

"I thought I'd never have to do this again," he sighed. "I thought, no matter what happens in Scotland, I'm going to be done."

He held up his sword to inspect it, then set it on his coffee table.

"If you'd won - I mean, if you'd been the only one left," Duncan said as he sat down again. "Would you have kept it?"

"You know, I thought about that," Methos told him. "I figured I'd give it to the Watchers. I wrote Joe a whole long-winded letter about it all."

"So did I," Duncan said, laughing a little. "I thought of all the people left, he'd put my things to use best. I even left him the land in Scotland."

Methos nodded, then stood and picked up his sword. "Well. I'm going to bed. It's been a very long day and I suspect tomorrow will be just as bad. You'll have to make the bed in the guest room, but the sheets are on the chair in there. Extra blankets, well, you've found those already."

Duncan patted the pile of blankets to his side. "I have indeed."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Watchers discuss the situation and Duncan meets up with a friend.

There was an all hands meeting first thing in the morning at the Watcher headquarters in Paris. When Joe got there he realized it wasn't just the field agents and supervisors, or even just the Paris office. It was everyone. They had calls up from London, Tokyo, New York, LA, all the big hubs where they'd had people still active. Even with all the Immortals supposedly gone, they would have needed people to maintain the archives in each city, watch for anything out of the ordinary, that sort of thing. The field agents who'd retired or moved on to other jobs were all being recalled and the ones who'd already come back were in their regional offices now, waiting to hear what was going on.

Once the last few Watchers had filtered into the room and found seats, Director Grandis walked up to a podium at the front. He wasn't Joe's favorite person in the world, but he was a hell of a lot better than some of the previous directors had been. The Council ran things for the most part. Grandis was just a mouthpiece but at least he knew it and didn't try to throw his weight around.

"Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us. While I hope that all of you have read the brief we sent out I know that it's all overwhelming and many of you have questions. We hope we can address them here today."

Joe sighed and settled into his seat. He'd been there. He hadn't really gone home for more than a shower and a shave. Couldn't he have been excused from this event? A few seats down he saw Amy surreptitiously pull a book out of her satchel and nest it in her notebook to look at. Damn. He should have thought of that too.

"First of all, yes, we do believe the Gathering occurred. This is not a repeat of New York or Chang'an or any of the other smaller events. We still have no observed occurrences of new Immortals in the past ten years. We can account for all known Immortal activity in that time as well. The final two Immortals were observed in person by myself, three other Council members, and several field agents including the agents assigned to the final two competitors: Amy Zoll and Joseph Dawson. They can all vouch for what we observed."

Grandis paused to check his notes while the people around Joe and Amy turned to look at them. Amy ignored them. Joe just shrugged.

"I've got my report written up," he told the people nearest to him. "I'll send it around when I can."

"The event that followed the final match appears to have resulted in the return of all Immortals who lost their heads - by any means - in the past two hundred years. We do have a list of all observed returned Immortals and we have lists of every Immortal who died in the past two centuries and the locations of their deaths. We will be checking these lists against observed Immortals as time goes on but we _must stress_ that we have already seen fights breaking out among the newly returned Immortals. We do know that most of the fights observed have had remarkably smaller quickenings at the ends, but this may well be the result of inflated expectations, as it were. We do _not_ know if this means that the Game has been restarted. The implications are currently unknown."

That got everyone talking again and Joe looked over at Amy. She was still reading. 

Another agent tapped him on the shoulder.

"Is it true MacLeod won?" she asked. "That's what I keep hearing."

"Nah," he told her. "We have no idea who won. You couldn't see a damn thing."

"Couldn't see…" She trailed off as Grandis cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.

"We have recalled all field agents. We know many of you had plans for your retirement or new careers, but we are in dire need at the moment. We will also be bringing in a number of civilians we know to be aware of Immortals and asking for their help in documenting any Immortal activity. We know this is not how we normally operate, but this situation has no precedent and we need to keep an eye on more than we are currently staffed for."

That was putting it mildly. They only had a small fraction of their previous numbers. They couldn't very well send the archivists out into the field to follow some of these Immortals. They just weren't good at that. Or practiced.

"Now, we know this is going to be difficult," Grandis was saying. "But we also know that we are up to the challenge. You might also see news reports about mysterious appearances of people in old fashioned clothing. You might be tempted to try and explain. Do not tell anyone. If an Immortal approaches you with questions about the current year and time period, act as though you have no idea who or what they are. We are currently working on a decision regarding how we approach potential public knowledge of Immortals and until we have an official policy, we'd prefer to continue operating as we have before."

No one seemed particularly surprised about that. Joe figured everyone had known already what the deal was, but he'd kind of hoped maybe they'd have at least let their people give some help to the poor sons of bitches who'd woken up a hundred or two hundred years past their sell-by date.

"We have time for a few questions if anyone has anything we haven't covered."

An archivist near the front of the room stood up. It was one of the assistants who'd helped Joe and Amy the day before.

"Yes, Mr. Fontaine?" Grandis said.

"When will the archives be getting the documented footage of the final match?"

Grandis frowned, then quickly smoothed his features with a bland smile. "We're still reviewing the fight and making a detailed transcript," he assured him. "I promise the raw footage will be submitted to the archives in due time." He nodded to him and turned to look at everyone else.

"Director?" the representative from Tokyo spoke up. "We have a question here about the current whereabouts of the two final challengers."

"They're both in Paris," Grandis said, looking up towards Joe and Amy, who at least looked up from her book this time.

"Far as I know, yeah," Joe agreed. "MacLeod's staying in Pierson's spare room, or he did last night after catching up with Fitzcairn. He sold his place here when he moved to Scotland."

"What about Pierson?" someone else in the room called out. "Is he really Methos?"

Grandis held out his hands as everyone started to talk. "Please, everyone, quiet, please. We do believe that yes, Adam Pierson is the current pseudonym for the Immortal known as Methos. This is a complicated situation and the Council is discussing it. For now, please just know we have every reason to believe he is Methos."

"What about that guy in Seacouver?" Lipov asked. "Wasn't he using that name?"

"Fake," Joe told him. "He grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin eighty years back. I found newspaper articles and worked backwards."

"Damn," Lipov muttered. "I had forty euros on Pierson being full of shit."

"Oh, he's full of shit, all right," Joe assured him. "He's full of five thousand years worth of shit." As he spoke he saw Amy nodding in agreement without looking up from her book.

"Now! Everyone!" Grandis was trying to impose some order but Joe was pretty sure he had already lost that battle. "Everyone! Please! We're calling in everyone we can, but if you know someone who witnessed a challenge or has been asking about the newly returned Immortals, consider passing their name to your supervisor for possible recruitment!"

Joe scowled at that, drawing a few curious looks from the other Watchers, but now Grandis was dismissing everyone and the room had devolved into knots of argument and a flurry of hurried conversation.

"What's wrong?" Amy asked. She'd stowed her book and notebook back in her satchel and was pulling on her coat. "Don't like the idea that we're apparently just going to welcome in random people off the street with no vetting?"

"No, I don't like that one bit," Joe told her. "This is going to be a mess. They're going to take people we know nothing about just to have enough bodies to fill the empty desks. We're going to end up with a real disaster here."

"From your mouth to the Council's ears," she sighed. "Let's just do what we can to keep an eye on our guys and find out what we can about what's going on."

As they walked out of the room one of the archive assistants hurried up behind them. 

"Ah, hi? Hello. I think I might have found something interesting last night," she told them.

"How interesting?" Joe asked.

"What was your name again?" Amy added.

"Marguerite," she told them. "And interesting in that it's part of the Gathering lore, but not officially? Come to the archives and I'll show you what I mean."

Joe glanced at Amy, who shrugged. "Let's go. What else were we going to be doing today?"

* * *

The morning had been a cold one and Methos had realized as he got out of bed that he hadn't left himself any slippers in this apartment. Socks he had plenty of, so he doubled up on those and went to make coffee. Mac had already been up and about. He could tell because the spare room's door was open and the bed was freshly made. But Mac himself wasn't present. Methos couldn't feel him nearby.

For a brief moment, Methos considered being worried about MacLeod's wellbeing. He truly did. But Duncan MacLeod was really pretty good at taking care of himself, when he wasn't plagued by Imposter Syndrome and looking to prove that he was The Worst Person Ever. Methos wasn't going to just assume the man was fine, but he also wasn't going to assume the worst. He'd probably gone to buy new clothes or something.

Once the coffee was brewing Methos dug around in his cabinets for something approximating breakfast. He'd stocked the place with an eye towards food that could sit for a long time. Bread was not one of those foods. So he had a couple of granola bars, some honey and crackers, and the tail end of a block of cheese that didn't seem to have any visible mold. As breakfasts went, he'd had worse. Far worse. 

Methos had just sat down in the living room with his plate of odds and ends and his cup of coffee when he got the vaguest sense of someone approaching. He waited, just in case it was a random Immortal who'd passed close enough to whatever his current radius of presence was, but it grew stronger and stronger, coming his way. He frowned and got up to get his sword, just in case, but it was MacLeod who walked through the door. Even better, it was MacLeod with a bag from a patisserie a short walk away and another bag from a little grocery down the road.

"Your pantry seemed bare," Mac said, holding up the bags, then glancing pointedly at Methos' plate.

"This is perfectly decent food," Methos said, more because agreeing felt like it would be too easy. Couldn't let MacLeod have that.

"Right. Decent in an emergency," Mac said. He went into the kitchen and Methos got up to follow him. "But I have croissants and grapes and real cream. Because it's not an emergency."

Methos paused in the doorway to watch MacLeod move around the kitchen, putting food away where he wanted, putting a plate together with far more appetizing choices than the granola bars and old cheese Methos had. And it wasn't as if Methos was going to argue about where Mac was putting anything. The cabinets were all but empty, as was the fridge.

"Here," Mac handed him the plate, then made one up for himself.

Methos watched him, then turned and went back into the living room. There was a table in the kitchen, sure, but the living room was more comfortable. He sat back down on the couch and added the little pot of honey to his new plate. He knew he should probably finish off the cheese too, but maybe that could wait until lunch.

Mac emerged from the kitchen with his plate and a mug of coffee. 

"So, you've decided the world isn't about to explode?" Methos asked as Mac decided between the two armchairs since Methos had stretched out on the couch.

"Not in the next few hours," Mac allowed. "I sat up a long time last night, you know. Thinking about this. Yes, there are a lot of people who are probably back who'd I'd rather not deal with again. But I got to have a beer with Fitz last night. I sat and talked with Darius. I don't know who else I'll get to see. I think it's worth it."

Methos tore a piece off his croissant and ate it, then peeled another piece away and ripped it into smaller pieces while MacLeod talked. When he paused, Methos dropped the croissant crumbs to his plate and brushed off his hands.

"I don't know if it is yet," he said, taking his time with each word. "Maybe. But at the very least, it's not the end of days. I didn't really want to be responsible for whatever the Prize was."

"Maybe you are," MacLeod suggested. "Maybe I am. Anyhow, things don't feel as dire this morning as they did last night."

Methos nodded and plucked a grape off the bunch Mac had given him. "Good. Then we can try to figure this out together without so much doom and gloom."

He'd just popped the grape into his mouth when his phone buzzed at him from the coffee table. He looked down and picked it up when he saw that it was Joe.

"Joe, good morning."

"Yeah, it's great. Listen, can you meet me somewhere in about an hour?"

Methos glanced over at Mac, who was watching him. "Joe wants to meet me in an hour."

"Is MacLeod there still?" Joe asked.

"He is, yes," Methos told him. "You want him to come too?"

"He can if he wants, but this is more a question for someone with your specific skill set," Joe said.

Methos frowned and plucked another grape for himself. "That's ominous," he told Joe. "What skills of mine do you need? I have quite a few, you know. A lot of them aren't pleasant. Please tell me you don't need someone killed."

"Methos…" MacLeod rumbled, but stopped when Methos glared at him. 

"Joking!" he said. "So what do you need, Joe?"

Joe was sighing so heavily Methos wondered if he'd sprained something. "I need something translated, smartass. We've got a book of folklore - thanks for that tip, by the way - but we think it might be mis-translated from the original."

"I could just come to the archives," Methos suggested.

"Thea Dubois will kill you if you set foot over her threshold," Joe told him.

"I don't doubt it," Methos allowed. "Let's try for coffee, then."

"I'll text you where to meet," Joe told him. "How's Mac?"

"He's fine," Methos said. He looked over at MacLeod and smiled. "You're fine, right?"

"I'm fine!" Mac called out to Joe.

"Good. I'll see you in a little while," Joe said before hanging up.

MacLeod had taken the opportunity of Methos' phone call to eat most of his breakfast. Methos tossed his phone onto the coffee table and picked up his plate again as Mac got up to bring his to the kitchen.

"Want to come with me? I'm going to be doing thrilling translation work," Methos said before slicing off some of the cheese and giving it a try. Maybe a little dry, but definitely edible. 

"I've got some things to do," Mac told him as he came back out of the kitchen with a newly filled mug of coffee. "I need clothes, you need more groceries. Do you mind if I stick around a little longer? You crashed with me more than a few times. I figure you owe me."

"Of course I do," Methos agreed. "Sure. Get groceries. Get clothes. Whatever. I'll see you later."

* * *

While Methos went off to his meeting with Joe, Duncan headed out into the city. He needed clothes beyond the bag he'd packed in Scotland - though he also needed to go back there and actually pack up the place properly if he was going to be living in Paris again for a while - and Methos' idea of a stocked kitchen was a little horrifying. 

So yes, he had legitimate things to do. But he also was hoping that he would run into people. Not people he'd fought already, but people he'd lost track of. People who'd fallen in that last push to the end. People who'd fallen years or decades before.

Maybe he was procrastinating a little. There were ways and means to find out if some of his old friends had shown up. He knew where he'd lost some of them. He could have gone to find them right away. He could have done that as soon as he'd gotten back to Paris. He should have. But though he'd never admit it to Methos, sometimes being the good guy was hard. Sometimes he was jealous as hell of Methos' ability to judge a situation too risky and just get out of town.

He'd done the groceries first, then brought them back to Methos' place and put them away. Then he went back out with the intention of buying clothes, but he ended up meandering instead. Eventually his wandering brought him to a familiar bridge. He'd lived in Paris many times over the centuries and knew the city well, so he had to believe he'd wanted to end up here. When he felt another Immortal, he looked around, wondering if somehow Pierre had come back despite Joe and Methos' assertions that there seemed to be a two century limit on returns.

But it wasn't Pierre. And it wasn't a stranger. An all too familiar face looked back at him from the steps by the bridge. When he saw Duncan, he stood.

"Richie," Duncan said. His feet wouldn't move. He couldn't bring himself to walk forward just in case. In case of what, he wasn't sure. Maybe this wasn't real. Maybe it was and Richie would run, or run him through, or just refuse to talk. They were all reasonable options as far as Duncan was concerned.

"Mac," Richie said. "Been a while." And then he smiled and Duncan was certain in that instant that he did not deserve this but that he was going to take every chance it gave him.

"Yeah. Yeah it has." Duncan found he could move now and strode forward to wrap his arms around Richie and hold him tight for just a moment before stepping back. "God, Richie. It's good to see you."

"You too, man. This is pretty wild, huh?"

"That it is," Duncan agreed. "I'll explain later. For now… Richie, I'm so sorry."

Richie looked at him without speaking, just stood there and considered him, and Duncan wondered for the first time what these returned Immortals knew. What they remembered and what they might have seen or experienced. If Methos had won and Duncan was one of the returned, then there wasn't really anything to speak of. But if he hadn't… 

"Forgiven," Richie said after a while. "I know what was going on. I knew then. I should have been more careful."

"And I should have been able to control myself more," Duncan told him. "But it looks like we get a second chance."

"Yeah. Sure does. You mentioned explaining? Some of the folks I've run into said something about the Gathering happening," Richie said. "All I know is I woke up in an office building hallway and it's like, twenty years later."

Duncan sighed. "Right. Come on, let's go raid Methos' liquor cabinet. I'll tell you what I know."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Methos gets some translation work from the Watchers, the Watchers get some new recruits, and Richie gets to ask Methos some questions.

The weather had turned a little and it was warmer than it had been the day before, but there was still a chill in the air. By the time Methos arrived at the cafe Joe had told him to be at, he was well ready for a warm drink. Joe was seated at a table near the back and there was a young woman with him that Methos didn't recognize. He nodded to them and went to order his coffee before going over to join them.

"So, what do you need translated and what do I get out of it?" he asked as he took a seat across from Joe and the woman.

"This is Marguerite Coste. She's one of the archivists still working in the Paris office. Marguerite, this is Adam."

Methos held out his hand, mostly to see if she would actually shake it. She hesitated a little but then actually did reach out. Her shake was firm, but short, which was fine. It was better than just ignoring his hand.

"It's a pleasure, Marguerite," Methos said.

"Likewise," Marguerite said. "Might I ask, are you really who they say you are?"

Methos glanced at Joe, who sighed. "It's all over the office now," he said.

"I see," Methos said. "Yes. I am."

"I'd always assumed you'd look older. Foolish, I know, because you all look how you looked… I mean, yes. I assumed. But I know better." She smiled quickly, then looked down at the bag in her lap. "Can you actually read this?" she said, taking a sheaf of papers out of the bag.

Methos took the papers and glanced through them. "Huh. This is copied from the original book or is it a translation of something earlier?"

"That's the original book," Joe told him. "It was written by a Watcher who traveled all over Europe. He wrote down a bunch of stories he heard from different Immortals while he was traveling and submitted it to the archives when he retired."

"His handwriting was atrocious," Methos commented as he started to read through the first page. "Do you have the translation in common use in the organization? Is there one?"

Marguerite dug in her bag again and produced another sheaf of papers. "There is one," she told him. "But it was done over a century ago and when I went to look at it, a few things seemed awkward, so I took a look at the original and I'm not fluent in Russian or Finnish but I spotted enough to see some oddities."

"Well, the first problem is that it's a very old form of Karelian, not Russian or Finnish, and not modern Karelian, so that's going to make things difficult," Methos told her. "The second problem is that he's using a lot of abbreviations and that's going to cause misunderstanding."

Methos laid out the first page of the original and the first page of the translation, comparing them to each other sentence by sentence. He hadn't ever looked at this book, which wasn't terribly surprising. There were so many and he'd only ever had time to read through a handful on his own. And if this one hadn't been catalogued with the Gathering as a subject heading then he wouldn't have gone looking for it specifically. "My Old Karelian is rusty," he admitted after reviewing the first page. "But you're right. There are some inconsistencies. The translation was probably done by someone who knew the language, but not written in Cyrillic. Or someone who knew Finnish or maybe one of the modern dialects of Karelian and tried to bridge the gap and failed." 

He looked up and saw Joe just shaking his head while Marguerite was staring at him.

"How many languages do you know?" she asked. "How can you remember them all?"

"Our memories are pretty good," he told her. "And when you live in the language for a while, it tends to stick. It helps when you've taken a head from a native speaker too." That was a bit of an exaggeration, but it wasn't like anyone could test it. He wasn't claiming that anyone learned a brand new language from a quickening, after all.

"Oh." She dug around in her bag again and handed him a small notebook. "Those are some of the notes I made about it."

Methos took the notebook and then stacked all the papers back together and tucked them into the back. "I'll let Joe know what I find," he told Marguerite. "I guess what I get out of this is homework."

"Hey, what you get out of this is some information," Joe said. "You get all of that, and I figured I'd let you know a few things: This does look like it's worldwide, which means we've got a lot to deal with. And yeah, your name is out there now. Just among us! But you know how that goes."

Marguerite frowned at Joe and leaned sideways toward him. "What do you mean by that?"

Oh, so naive. But she was trying to help and she was here and he gave her credit for that. 

"Things get loose sometimes," Methos said before Joe could respond. "Especially things like a myth being real. It was nice being a myth, but I guess that's over now."

"I guess so, buddy," Joe muttered. "Look, how long do you think that'll take to do?"

Methos looked down at the notebook and papers. "I don't know. As I said, I'm a little rusty. But I should be able to do this much in a day or two. Depends on how busy I get and if you bring me more pages." And how many challengers came looking for him. Being one of the final two in the Gathering would have had people hunting him now anyhow. 

Joe nodded. "Let me know when you're done."

Methos tucked the notebook away into an inner pocket in his coat, then picked up his coffee again. "Of course."

* * *

"I am not running an Immortal bed and breakfast," Methos commented as he walked into his apartment to find MacLeod and Richie Ryan in his living room. They'd found his liquor, so that was annoying, but they hadn't found the good stuff, so that was okay.

"Methos," Mac said, standing. "It'd just be one night. I'll use the couch."

"It's a fold-out," Methos sighed. "Came with the place. Fine. Richie, good to see you alive and kicking."

Richie stood as well, looking like he'd maybe be more comfortable almost anywhere but Methos' living room. "Hey, thanks," he said. "And look, um. It's good to be here. Mac says the two of you made it all the way?"

Methos hung up his coat by the door and pulled the sword out of its pocket. He set it on a table by the kitchen doorway and tossed his keys down next to it. Then he took out the notebook Joe and his archivist friend had given him and went to get a glass from the kitchen. 

"We did indeed," he said as he came back into the living room and poured himself some of the scotch Mac and Richie had helped themselves to. "Did he also say we have no idea what happened?"

"Yeah, yeah he did," Richie said. "I guess everyone's back, huh?"

"It does look like it, yes," Methos sighed. "Sit down, both of you. I'm not kicking anyone out, though I know damn well Duncan can afford a hotel. But I invited him and I suppose students come with that so. Welcome."

Richie and MacLeod both sat down and relaxed a little. Methos put his feet up on the coffee table and relaxed as well. 

"I was telling Richie that there's a limit to it," Mac said. "But he's young enough, every Immortal he ever encountered is alive again."

"Fortunately for me, some of the ones I'd like to avoid are back in Seacouver and I died here," Richie said. "But I know some of them must be around."

Methos wanted nothing more than to just pretend none of them were around. Well, none of the bad ones. He had a very nasty feeling about Bordeaux, but Kronos would never have stuck around somewhere he knew Methos could find him. He'd have been gone once he'd seen the place was gutted. He'd be off somewhere plotting. If Methos was lucky, he'd get distracted trying to take over a small country or something.

"Of course they are. Unless they're already dead, again," Methos said. "I had a challenge yesterday. It's already all started up again."

"Why the hell would it?" Richie demanded. "I mean, yeah, that other guy was wrong in the end, cause you were right, it only takes one guy who doesn't buy into it to screw you over, but it ended! You guys were there! Why can't people just be glad they're back and go on with their lives?"

Methos and MacLeod shared a glance. Methos sipped his scotch and looked down at the notebook. It was fresh, probably started for the express purpose of handing him something that he couldn't glean any other information from. That in itself told him that Marguerite was good at her job. He thought about the stories in the rest of that book and wondered if she'd share those too if he translated this one well enough. Maybe. But it didn't solve the problem at hand.

"For some of us, that was their lives," MacLeod pointed out after a few moments of silence. "Their whole lives. Just fighting. You had a taste of that yourself. Imagine that, but for decades. Centuries. Fighting, winning, fighting more."

"So we're back where we started," Richie sighed. "Great. Great!"

"Hey, nothing says you have to fight all the time," Methos told him. "Walking away is a perfectly reasonable alternative to fighting. Running away too, if necessary."

"Yeah, I know, but it always seems to bite me in the ass," Richie said. "Guess I'd better get good at it. I'd like to live a little longer this time than I did before." He glanced at MacLeod, then hurried to correct. "Oh! I mean, Mac, really, no hard feelings. I told you. I just mean, I don't want to lose my head right away, you know?"

MacLeod looked stricken, but quickly covered it up. Methos was impressed. There'd been a time when MacLeod's emotions had always been plainly written on his face and no amount of effort could have hidden them. Now at least he seemed to know when he needed to reel it in. Methos wondered just when he'd learned that. If it had come recently or not long after they'd parted ways at the beginning of the end.

"So, ah… Either of you guys hear from Amanda yet?"

"She was going to find Rebecca," Methos said. "I had a text from her this morning. I guess she had to get ahold of a new phone. Somehow."

"She always did have money stashes," Mac said. "She must have had a few still left hidden when she died. And I bet the abbey had a bunch of Immortals show up on the grounds," he continued. "Anyone who lost their head to a mortal or an accident showed up on holy ground. Darius' church was like that."

"I'm sure every plot of holy ground had someone show up there," Methos noted. "Maybe you should start a checklist of people you want to reconnect with," he suggested to Mac.

"Already did," Mac said, grinning at him. "So there."

Methos laughed and got up. "Well. I have some work to do. Don't drink all of my booze."

* * *

When Joe got back to the office he parted ways with Marguerite, who claimed Thea would make her rebind rotting chronicles if she was late. Having handled a few decrepit journals in his days, Joe let her go without comment. When he got into the main building he had to stop and look around. He'd been able to identify all of the people they had on site as of that morning. Not by name, necessarily, but he'd known they belonged there. But on the ground floor of the building were two knots of people he flat out did not know. Huh.

Once up on the hall where his office was, Joe stopped by Amy's and looked in. She had several large books open on her desk and had co-opted an ancient typewriter stand to perch two more. The laptop in the middle of it all seemed hilariously incongruous.

"Who are all those kids downstairs?" he asked when she looked up.

Amy groaned and waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the front of the building.

"New recruits or some shit," she said. "Grandis sent out an email, and some folks took that comment in this morning's meeting to heart and sent in friends. I don't know how the hell we're going to train them on top of all the work we've got in front of us already."

"Not like we can ship 'em off to the Academy," Joe muttered. "You know what they're going to do, right? They're going to toss one at each of us for on-the-job training. We're going to have some green kid shadowing us while we try to figure this all out."

Amy stared at him, then let loose a string of profanity.

"I know," Joe said. "So what are you looking at? Where'd you get all this? They're too big for you to have hidden them under your coat in the archives."

"Thea likes me," Amy told him as she turned her attention back to the books in front of her. "I interned in the archives, and I've always been respectful."

Joe whistled low and came around behind her desk to look at what she had. "You pulled the Lensky?" he asked. "What did he have to say about the Gathering? I thought his deal was all theorizing on folks like Cassandra."

"It was," Amy agreed. She carefully turned the pages until she got to the section she wanted and turned the book a little to show him. "But see? He had plenty to say about the potential for Immortals to have latent gifts we hadn't seen yet. I remembered he had a chapter on his ideas about how the power of Immortals isn't fully understood but is capable of bestowing abilities that appear to be magic to mortals. I figured it was worth a look."

Joe read through a little bit in the book, then dragged a chair over and sat down to read more.

"Make yourself at home," Amy said, turning back to one of the other books. "If you want my opinion on all of this? I think it was Pierson at the end. We have no idea what he might have seen other Immortals do. What he might have learned and forgotten consciously but remembered in his subconscious. What he might be able to do and we just didn't know it."

Joe frowned a little, but didn't argue. That was one thing about knowing Methos: You had to realize you didn't actually _know_ him. Not like you knew other people. Did he even really know himself? Which, okay, was a little mean. Of course Methos knew himself. But how well? You live for five thousand years, you're bound to forget shit eventually. So Joe wasn't sure. On the other hand, he knew that Methos had eschewed fighting as much as he could, right up until the final few months. He was good at it, sure, when pressed, but he also avoided it like the plague. Why would he have let himself in for a potential repeat of the past hundred or so years?

"I dunno," Joe said. "I've seen him in action. His main skill that separates him from the rest is that he's ruthless when he needs to be, and he's good at being underestimated. He's no magician."

Amy gestured around at the books on her desk. "Joe, if there's one thing I've gathered from all of this? It's that I'm pretty sure they're all magicians of some kind."

Joe sighed, then grabbed a blank note pad from Amy's desk and turned one of the books in his direction to start doing some research of his own. If Thea trusted Amy enough to give her these books, he was going to take advantage of them while he could.

* * *

Late in the night, well after he'd heard MacLeod head to the guest room, Methos went to get himself a snack from the kitchen. He'd been trying to be quiet, but as it turned out, Richie was awake anyhow. He'd taken a book from Methos' shelves and was reading by the light of a single lamp near the couch.

Methos walked into the living room and paused. "No sleep?" he asked. 

Richie looked up, then shook his head. "I tried," he told Methos. "But I dunno. Every time I try it's like no time passed between then and now."

Methos went over and grabbed one of the spare blankets, then draped it over himself after he sat in the chair opposite the couch. "Mind if I ask you a somewhat personal question?"

"Go for it," Richie said, closing the book and putting it aside. Methos was amused to note that it was the prequel to the one he'd had with him on his way to Scotland. 

"How much do you remember?" Methos asked. "I'm not trying to be an asshole, I assure you, I'm just curious if you recall dying, or your quickening being absorbed. I've wondered about that for literally thousands of years."

It took a while for Richie to answer. Methos let him take his time. This wasn't something simple, to be answered off hand. This wasn't about who he was sleeping with or even why he used one fighting technique over another. It wasn't about what heads he'd taken or not taken. Certainly those were reasonable questions for Immortals to discuss amongst themselves. They were personal, but often relevant to issues that came up and sometimes you had to ask. But this was different. This was about death. Actual death. And that was a bit of a taboo among Immortals. You just didn't talk about what it was like to kill someone. They did it regularly to each other, whether temporarily or permanently. But they didn't talk much about it outside of teachers to students. At least, not that Methos had really known. Not normal people like Richie and MacLeod. Relatively normal. Normal for Immortals.

"You know, I don't know," Richie admitted. "I've been thinking about it, you know? I didn't want to talk to Mac about it. He's feeling guilty as hell anyhow. But I remember watching him and realizing he didn't know who I was. He was seeing something else entirely. And then it's just… light. Like I was made of it or something. I don't really remember much else. It's not like I was in Mac's head or anything, hanging out with everyone else. I was there, then it was all light, and then I was on the floor and it was decades later and everything's different."

Methos listened closely, committing it all to memory. Maybe it wasn't precisely what other people experienced. Maybe the nature of MacLeod's delusion at the time factored in somehow. Maybe the fact that Richie had come back affected his perception of the whole thing - the Observer Principle in effect. 

"I don't think he ever got over it," Methos told Richie after a few moments of the two of them just sitting there in the dark. "None of us ever want to have to take a student's head. Sometimes one has to - people change, or don't, and sometimes it's necessary. But no one wants to. No one you'd want to know, anyhow. But to find out you'd done it by accident…" He shook his head.

"Yeah. I get that," Richie said. "We talked. And I mean, I'm cool. I don't blame him. He was messed up, seeing things that weren't there, not seeing things that were. Maybe it'd be easier if I really had been riding along in his head, seen how broken up he was about it. Or at least have some idea that time passed, you know?"

Methos nodded. "It's like Nefertiri," he pointed out. "Just be glad it's not two thousand years later."

"I know, imagine that? No wonder she was pissed off," Richie muttered. "You know about that?"

"I was in the Watchers at the time," Methos pointed out. "Everyone was interested. We don't get that many Immortals who get stashed, dead, for that long. And Marcus Constantine is an old friend. I kept an eye on it all. Angela's death was a tragedy. Not her fault Marcus and Nefertiri had history, though Marcus should have known better, honestly."

Methos could feel Richie watching him. He knew he sounded a little callous. Angela had been mortal. She was dead and she wasn't coming back. And truly, he'd been sad to find out what had happened. But there hadn't really been any good outcome in that situation. As soon as Marcus had found the sarcophagus Methos had known something horrible was going to happen. But Marcus hadn't listened and then MacLeod had gotten involved and Methos had taken a quick research trip to Sicily to stay out of his way.

"She's back, you know," Methos said. "Nefertiri. I caught up with her the other day. She was going to go after Marcus again, but I suggested she go for a trip to Egypt first, see how much time has passed for herself. Hopefully, she took my advice and is on her way to Cairo."

"So hey, while we're getting personal," Richie said. "Mind if I ask _you_ something?"

"You can ask," Methos said. "Can't promise an answer."

"Sure. Sure. So. If you're really five thousand years old," Richie started.

"That's an estimate," Methos pointed out, interrupting.

Richie rolled his eyes and Methos immediately liked him just a little more. "Right, but that's not my point. My point is that you've been doing this a long time. Did you think you'd actually make it? Like, did you ever think 'This is it, this is the end of the road for me' or what?"

Methos sat and actually thought about that for a moment. Richie no more had a true understanding of what Methos' perspective was than Methos had of Richie's. He certainly didn't have any clear memories of being that young. 

"Every single time I go into a challenge, I figure it might be the end. And every single time, I do everything I possibly can for it not to be," he said finally. "Being this old, sometimes I think it was just luck. Maybe a little more desperation."

Richie nodded. "I dunno if I was ever going to be that desperate," he said as Methos stood up. "I mean, I've been desperate, but not enough to win against some of these guys."

Methos folded the blanket he'd been using and draped it over the back of his chair. "That's when you don't win," he explained. "That's when you run. Some fights you're just not going to win, so you don't fight them. You're not required to keep fighting when you know you're going to lose."

"Yeah, well. I think Mac might argue with that."

"Don't I fucking know it," Methos muttered. "Get some sleep, kid. And welcome back."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone's throwing a party, because why not? But before the party, Methos has work to do and the Watchers have new recruits to train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter breaks for the next couple are going to be a little odd, length-wise. Sorry about that.

Usually, before the Gathering, whenever Methos had taken up residence in his living room, Duncan could count on him to sleep in at least a little. He went from asleep to awake very quickly, true, but he also didn't let pesky things like the rising of the sun determine his hours. Maybe it had been a calculated move to annoy him. Maybe it had been because Methos was sleeping on a couch all those times. Whatever the difference, Methos was up before Duncan that morning and already had coffee brewing when Duncan walked into the kitchen.

Richie was still asleep on the couch and Duncan hesitated in the kitchen doorway, looking back out at him for a few seconds, before turning to face Methos.

"He was up late," Methos said from where he was leaning against the counter, mug of coffee in hand. "We talked a little."

"Is he okay?" Duncan asked. "Really?"

Methos shrugged and set down his mug to poke around in the cabinets for some of the things Duncan had bought the day before. "He's as okay as any of us are right now."

Duncan nodded and poured himself coffee, then accepted a day-old croissant from Methos. He was about to say something about the new landscape of the world of Immortals when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. 

Methos' was also buzzing and they checked them at the same time.

"This is a horrible idea," Methos said. Duncan glanced over to see what he was seeing. If it was the same thing as what he was seeing, yes, it did seem like maybe a bad plan.

"Robert and Gina?" Duncan asked. Because on his phone was a text apparently sent to several people from Gina's phone, inviting them all to their estate for drinks and dinner. He wasn't sure who else was in this conversation, but Robert and Gina's estate wasn't holy ground and sometimes they weren't the best at judging how their friends would get along. 

Methos nodded. "Robert and Gina. I'm amazed they're not sending out embossed invitations with wax seals. Seems more their style than a group text and a promised evite."

"Who knows? Maybe they're just waiting to do that later," Duncan said. "You have to admit, this is faster, and a lot cheaper than hand-written invitations." As he was talking he was texting them back. It would be good to see Robert again. Gina too, but she'd lasted longer. Duncan had no idea who'd taken her head, but she'd sent him an email a year ago, so she'd made it at least that long.

"Maybe," Methos said. He sent his own text back and tucked his phone back in his pocket. "Damn. This means I need to get them something."

"Why?" He was still writing his text, saying he'd be there, against his better judgement, and did they want him to bring Fitz too?

"I mean, I did kill Gina," Methos said.

Duncan looked up sharply, staring at him.

"What?" Methos said. "It was the Gathering, MacLeod. For all you know I killed you too. We all faced people we didn't want to. If we'd been able to stop ourselves, the Gathering wouldn't have happened."

Duncan could have reminded Methos that he'd tucked himself away. That he'd followed Methos' own example and avoided the fighting for as long as possible. That he'd been in Scotland for years without a fight before Methos and the others had shown up, their presence a temptation he'd lived without. But where would that argument get him? Nowhere whatsoever. After all, when they had shown up, he'd left his house. He'd had to get away from the temptation to resist it. And you could only find so many places these days where no one would intrude. Even Methos' favorite stomping grounds had tourists now.

And besides, how could he get up in arms over Methos taking Gina's head when they had Richie sleeping on the couch in the other room? He'd taken his own student's head for a lesser reason than the Gathering, after all.

Duncan sighed and nodded. "Well, then you should find a gift or something."

"A gift for who?" Richie asked from the doorway. 

Both Methos and Duncan looked in his direction.

"Gina de Valicourt," Methos told him. "I took her head a week ago and now she's inviting us for dinner. I figure it's only polite."

"Dinner?" Richie said as he went in search of coffee mugs and food. "Any chance I'm invited?"

"They did say to bring friends," Methos pointed out. "You'll need better clothes."

* * *

MacLeod and Richie had gone out, ostensibly to shop for clothes for Richie, but Methos suspected there'd be some talking too. That was fine. The kid needed to be caught up on the past few decades anyhow. A lot had happened since the 1990s. Phones were smart now, which was useful and horrifying all at the same time. Methos made a private wager with himself on how long it would be before Richie had an Instagram account. Maybe a day or two. 

While they were out, Methos got back to the work of translating the papers Joe and Marguerite had given him. He'd worked late into the night, even after talking to Richie, and gotten maybe a third of it done. There was some idiomatic phrasing he knew he was getting wrong and would have to go digging online for, and he'd found three sentences that were flat out wrong in the older translation. The idioms probably were too, but until he found someone who'd done a handy guide to Karelian idioms, they'd stay a bit of a mystery. Literal translations only told you so much.

As far as he could tell, the part that Marguerite had given him was a chapter not on the Gathering specifically, but on the consolidation of power in various individual Immortals. An Immortal who took enough heads would gather in themselves an immense amount of power that, according to the story being told, warped the world around them. The author wrote about a story told by an Immortal to his student about another Immortal who had taken so many heads, he had gained the power to heal other people's wounds, not just his own. Methos wasn't sure whether to credit that, but it was interesting. 

The trouble was that these Immortals who had various powers - Cassandra, Garrick, a handful of others - most of the ones Methos had heard of hadn't really ever hunted. Not enough to amass that sort of power. And their gifts hadn't been passed along to whoever took their head. If you got strange powers from taking enough heads, surely MacLeod would have shown some hint of something long ago. Every hunter out there would have had something. Not to mention, if you took the head of someone who'd taken many heads, didn't you get that power too? There had to be something else.

Methos kept working, plodding through the author's musings on Immortal powers. There were some interesting ones listed, like being able to make plants wither or the ability to disappear at will. He wasn't about to discount them. Who knew what oddities Immortals had been capable of through the centuries. Then again, the power that had surrounded himself and MacLeod near the end had been unlike anything he'd seen before. Maybe in earlier times, with fewer Immortals around, it had been possible to amass more power than anyone else. Maybe it was relative to the number of Immortals born thus far. Maybe that had been the nature of the earlier events, the pseudo-Gatherings. Now there were some documents he wished he could get his hands on. Maybe if he finished up with this, he could do that. Though he also needed to go get Gina a gift. And he thought perhaps he had just the thing in storage.

* * *

"He said a day or two," Joe told Marguerite as she set some books down on his desk. Thea had apparently decided to be generous and allowed him to request some items. Right now he was focusing on the earlier Gathering-like events that had happened. 

"I know, I know," she sighed. "I got my hopes up that he would just read it and be done. Silly, I know. Like expecting him to look older. More… distinguished."

Joe laughed. "Damn right. I bet he's working on it now, if you want me to text him. Either that or he's out dealing with something else. They do have a lot going on. You might have noticed."

"I did notice, yes," she told him. "So you knew him when he was in the Watchers?"

"Yeah. Not too well, mind," Joe told her. "He was Don Salzer's student. Well, technically speaking. He'd been named to the Methos chair right out of the Academy. Showed a lot of promise with old records, winkling out a meaningful bit of information from a whole lot of rambling nonsense."

"And it was all for show," Marguerite sighed.

"I dunno," Joe said. "I mean, look at him now? He's translating a piece of folklore from our records. Who's to say he doesn't actually like this stuff? If we're being uncharitable? He just wanted a place to hide."

"Not to hunt?"

"No way in hell," Joe said, shaking his head. "I mean, I went looking when I found out. I cross checked chronicles and witness accounts and original recordings. I looked for any possibility of him using us to hunt and I got zilch. He was hiding out the whole time, learning about his own people through us. I guess it's easier to learn about Immortals that way than to ask each other. I mean, it's not like they keep their own histories. They kill each other. They don't write it all down and exchange it before a challenge."

Marguerite nodded. "That does make sense. And who would be more interested in knowing more about immortals than the oldest of them?" She looked down at the books she'd brought in for Joe. "Are these for him?"

"Nah. Well. Sort of? They're for me, but he's the one who pointed me at them. I'd have looked at them anyhow, though, so it's not for him so much as I'll probably tell him if I find anything interesting."

"What, precisely, are you hoping to learn?" she asked. 

"Well, for one, we'd like to see if we can figure out what happened up in Scotland," Joe said. "I mean, is the Game over? Is it starting new? Will we start seeing new Immortals popping up now or is this it?" Not that he thought the books from the archives would answer those questions. He knew better. But Immortals had known the Gathering was a thing for thousands of years now. How had they known that and not known what it would entail? Or had they known and it, like so many other things, had been obscured by centuries of oral history and poor translation? 

"So you're looking for insight from the closest we have to this event?" Marguerite ventured.

"Right," Joe told her.

Marguerite looked down at the books again, then smiled at Joe. "Right, well, I will see if I can find you anything else useful."

As she left, Joe heard her excuse herself to someone in the hall. He'd just picked up his next book when he heard a knock on his door and looked up.

"Ah, Joe, you're in," Grandis stood in the doorway, a pair of eager-looking young men just behind him. "Gentlemen, this is Joseph Dawson, one of our most esteemed field agents and supervisors. Joe, this is Lucas Kurtz and Denis Clement. They're two of our new recruits. I was hoping you might take them under your wing!"

Joe sat back and regarded the two men. "New recruits, huh? I dunno how much training they'll get with me, Director. MacLeod's mostly on his own recognizance these days and I'm up to my eyeballs in research on just what the hell we're dealing with."

"Excellent! Perfect, really. I have a feeling Lucas and Denis here are just the men to keep an eye on MacLeod for you while you get to the bottom of this whole situation. I'll leave you to it!" And then Grandis was gone, leaving his recruits behind.

Joe looked at them for a moment, then pushed himself up to his feet and grabbed his cane. "You two stay right here. And don't touch anything!" He made his way past them and then down the hall to Amy's office. Her door was open and inside she was glaring at a man and a woman, both of whom appeared to be in their thirties.

"Got you too?" Joe muttered to her.

"Just like we thought," Amy sighed. "Might as well make the most of it. Come on, you two. I'll show you around."

Joe went back to his office and stopped in the doorway. Lucas and Denis seemed to have followed his order not to touch anything, but that didn't mean he trusted them. You had to earn trust in the Watchers by keeping the whole thing a secret. And yeah, he'd whiffed that a few times over, but not until he'd had years of reputation built up to soften the blow. 

"Okay. So, tell me, Lucas. What's your deal?" Joe asked as he sat down behind his desk again. "And sit down, both of you. I can't stand as long as I used to and you'll give me a crick in my neck if I have to look up at you."

There was a spare chair in Joe's office and a few more out in the hallway. He waited while Denis went to get one of the more intact ones from the hall and Lucas dragged the other over closer to the desk.

"I, ah, I saw two Immortals?" Lucas said once Denis was seated next to him. "This was a few months ago. They were fighting and a woman was just… watching them. It was the middle of the day! But they were in a warehouse I use for photography sometimes and she was just crouched there, behind a pile of scrap. Recording the whole thing. When it was over, I watched her write something down. Then she saw me."

"And probably told you not to worry about it? It was for a film class?" Joe guessed.

"Sort of. But I didn't believe her. I badgered her until she told me the truth," Lucas said. "But then she told me it was all ending. That it wouldn't be long before it would never happen again. Then she called me the other day and told me to come here."

Joe smiled despite himself. If this new kid had the guts to question a field agent like that, then maybe he wasn't hopeless. If they hadn't been in the middle of the Gathering, he'd probably have been recruited and sent to the Academy anyhow.

"And you?" Joe asked, looking at Denis.

"I've known for a few years," Denis admitted. "My landlord died while replacing a light fixture. Then he came back. He told me. You people contacted me later, but I said no. I had a job, classes, I didn't want to just up and go away to some other school to spy on my landlord."

Joe nodded. "Yeah, that's not uncommon. Welcome to the crew anyhow," he told them. "Sorry you're stuck with me. What did Grandis tell you?"

Lucas and Denis looked at each other, then Denis spoke first.

"He told us you'd been in the Watchers for decades. That you were assigned to one of the last living Immortals during the Gathering. And that you talk to him."

Joe held back a sigh. They were new. They had no idea what they were getting into. They'd been fed a line by Grandis or whoever had done their basic debriefing, and he'd been set up as some sort of hero. At least it was better than being branded a traitor and having all the new kids warned away from him. It'd have been quieter, but he'd never have been able to get any help.

"Yeah, I talk to him. And yeah, he made it to the end. But before you get all starry eyed, you've got to know that's not the norm. Usually when Watchers get mixed up in Immortal shit, things get bad fast. MacLeod and me? We're an exception, not the rule. And no, I didn't help him win. He was out of touch for years before the Gathering."

He watched Lucas look a little disappointed and Denis look a little relieved. That was fine. They'd be fine. Probably.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for an awkward party full of recently-returned Immortals!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This runs a little long, but I didn't want to break the party into two parts.

"I still think this is a horrible idea," Methos said as they drove to Robert and Gina's estate. With Gina only having lost her head less than a week before he suspected there hadn't been much of a fuss about them keeping it. Besides, everyone had made contingency plans in case they weren't the winner. So here they were.

"It's definitely a horrible idea," Mac agreed as they parked. Quite a few cars were already there and they could hear music from inside the house. "But they're our friends."

"They were your friends first," Methos told him. 

"Well, I still haven't met them," Richie said as he got out of the back seat and checked himself over.

Methos could feel a whole pile of Immortals nearby. Of course there'd be more nearby. It was a party thrown by an Immortal couple who apparently knew everyone in the city. He'd been feeling their presence for the past mile or so, as if having them all together made them that much more of a target.

Before they could start up the front steps, another car puttered up the drive and parked next to Mac's truck. It was a positively ancient little vehicle. Saying it was on its last legs was doing it a grand favor. They waited for its driver to get out and when he did Mac went to greet him.

"Fitz, you made it. I should have offered you a ride."

"Oh no, dear boy!" Fitz said before leaning into his car and then straightening up with a bottle of wine in hand. "I knew I still had this little gem tucked away. Always good to have a backup in any city you frequent, you know!"

Methos had always tried to avoid Fitzcairn. True, they'd crossed paths when their social circles had intersected, but Fitz had a reputation. Everyone knew he drew attention, got in trouble. Basically he was both the worst and best sort of friend for Duncan MacLeod. The two of them had been quite the pair, from what Methos had heard over the years. And that had been precisely why he'd never really allowed himself to get to know the other man. Still, seeing him in person now, hearing him brush off Duncan's offer, make it clear he'd been prepared somehow for this impossible scenario. And, well, that was Methos' sort of guy.

Mac was looking at him and Methos nodded to Fitz.

"Come on, let's go on in," he said, shifting the package he had under his arm. He had indeed had the perfect gift in storage at his building, thank goodness. Even better that it had been at his home and not somewhere else since he'd gotten caught up in the translation work, building on Marguerite's notes and getting almost all the way through before Mac and Richie had interrupted him.

"And who is out here, waiting in the cold?" came Gina's voice from the front doors. "Duncan! Fitz! Adam! And who is this with you?"

"Richie Ryan," Duncan said, stepping forward to give Gina a hug. "He's my student."

"Then he is most welcome," Gina said, turning her smile in Richie's direction. "And Fitz, it is so good to see you!"

"My dearest Gina!" Fitz said, pushing Duncan out of the way to take Gina's hand and kiss it. "Please tell me that in the years since my death you have come to your senses and left Robert?"

Duncan had a pained look on his face and was shaking his head but Methos just laughed. "She almost did," he told Fitz. "I'll tell you the story about how Mac almost got me killed later. For now," he held out the wrapped package to Gina. "A gift. No hard feelings?"

Gina laughed and took it with one hand, then hooked him by the arm. "Of course not, Adam. We are friends, yes? I would have taken your head if not for that clever little feint of yours at the end." 

"Do you mean to say you took our fair lady's head?" Fitz asked, the outrage in his voice quite real.

"It was the Gathering, Fitz," Gina explained. "I challenged him, and not for the first time!"

"I did say Mac almost got me killed," Methos told him. "I'll explain it later. For now, just be glad you're back to be affronted."

Fitz grumbled a little, but Mac seemed to find it all very amusing and clapped him on the shoulder, keeping him nearby as they walked into the house.

There was both a hum of conversation and the buzz of Immortal presence as they walked through the entrance hall and into a large ballroom filled with tables and chairs and a dance floor.

"It isn't as much as we would have liked," Gina was saying. "But we did have to plan on short notice."

"Pink linens," Duncan noted. 

Gina laughed. "Yes! Robert does learn." She waved to Robert, then set her gift down on a table. "Let me open this…" She undid the hasty bow Methos had tied around it, then opened the box. Inside, he'd packed four vinyl records he knew she'd somehow lost from their collection. Except as far as he could tell, his were in better shape.

"Mint condition," he told her. "Inserts and all."

"Wonderful! Thank you, Adam!" Gina went up a little on her toes to kiss his cheek. "I will go put these somewhere safe. Go talk to people! I am sure there are plenty of people who will want to know more about what has happened."

Ah. So it really wasn't just a dinner party. It was an informational gathering. Of course it was. Methos looked around the room. Richie and Fitz had already apparently found people to introduce themselves to. Not everyone there was Immortal and the ones who weren't seemed to be maybe just a few breaths away from shock. The ones he noted kept looking at their companions in awe, likely having lost them weeks, months, maybe even years before. He hadn't really considered that aspect of it. He hadn't had any mortals who would miss him in the past few years, aside from Joe. Of course some mortals would have moved on, built new lives that didn't revolve around challenges and a loved one who could be killed at any moment without any possibility of legal recourse. But others would have still been there, waiting, maybe not even knowing what had happened. Maybe just hoping that it was all a mistake. And for once, for one time since Methos could remember, they had gotten a reprieve. 

The longer Methos stood there, watching new arrivals, the more comfortable it felt to be around so many others. It wasn't as if the presence of all those Immortals went away. He was still keenly aware of all of them, but it wasn't the irritation it always started out as. He'd always felt like it was almost a prodding, spurring him to be on the alert. Now it seemed more like tendrils making their way towards him, letting him know someone was there and reaching out for him. It was disconcerting in an entirely different way. Every time someone new approached he had to stop himself from reaching out a hand to try and push the feeling away, or pull it closer. Which was ridiculous, really. You couldn't touch this. It was like cicadas in the trees. You just had to learn to live with it while it was there.

"Good showing, isn't it?" Robert asked as he walked up and handed Methos a glass of champagne. "Really, I wasn't sure if anyone would accept our invitation, but it seems we're all in need of a little bit of a celebration."

"I guess so," Methos agreed. Across the room he saw Duncan freeze upon seeing someone Methos couldn't see from where he was. "Who else did you invite?" he asked.

"Oh, you know, all of our old friends. A few old enemies just for the thrill of it. You know how it is!"

Methos shrugged. "I don't really go in for socializing with enemies if I can help it," he told Robert. "My enemies don't tend to be the socializing type."

"Now that is a shame," Robert told him. "A good enemy you can toss barbed small talk at is priceless. I would have invited Vincent Dorham… Did you ever meet him? Horrible man, horrible swordplay, but very good wordplay! But I took his head - again - yesterday."

Methos glanced at him, distracted from Mac for a moment. "You took his head? Already?"

"Oh yes, he showed up on our lawn. It was the strangest thing too. I took his head, but it was almost as if he had nothing propping him up, as it were. All sound and fury, signifying nothing. But then, who knows what that means, given the current situation."

Methos was only half listening. He was moving, trying to get a look at who Mac was talking to. Robert followed him, seeming not to notice, really.

"Robert?" Methos asked, interrupting Robert's thoughts on the benefits of a good nemesis. "Did you invite Sean Burns?"

"Of course!" Robert said, laughing. "Sean's one of my oldest friends!"

"And Stephen Keane?"

Robert looked now, following Methos' gaze. "Oh, ah, yes? I assume so. He was Sean's student. Why do you ask?"

Methos sighed. "I really wish you'd had your estate consecrated or something," he muttered. "Mac, kind of… killed Sean. Not quite on purpose. It's a long story. But then Keane came after him and I might have shot Mac so he wouldn't let Keane take his head out of guilt. It was a damn mess."

"Oh… I see," Robert breathed. "And you think perhaps something will erupt in here?"

"Probably not," Methos admitted. Both Mac and Keane were far too honorable to just start fighting in the middle of a crowded ballroom in the home of two of their friends. Hopefully they'd just agree to go their separate ways now. Or Burns would actually intervene.

Methos and Robert watched as Mac and Keane talked. Methos didn't have anything in particular against Keane, he just seemed so excitable and honor-bound at the same time. Like a hybrid of Richie and MacLeod. He couldn't imagine having been in Sean's shoes as Keane's teacher. But then, Sean had the patience of a saint, so he'd probably been fine.

And speaking of Sean, there he was, striding across the room to stop a few feet from his student and his friend. Methos kept an eye on him too. He was clearly ready to step in if he needed to, but then Keane nodded at Mac, and Mac nodded back and held out a hand.

Methos heard Robert take in a breath and hold it, then let it out in relief when Keane took Mac's hand and gave it a firm shake.

"Well. That was a tense moment," Robert muttered. He took a sip of his champagne and sighed. "That was the risk we took, inviting everyone, I suppose."

"You suppose?" Methos said, glancing at him.

Robert glanced back, shrugged, then took another sip. "I've faced down worse! Come on, Pierson, drink up, enjoy, try not to get blood on the floor." He smiled at Methos and headed back towards his guests to welcome them, mingle, make small talk.

Methos sipped his champagne and tried to ignore the feeling of so many Immortals gathered in one place. It wasn't the most comfortable sensation in the world, even with the welcome weight of his sword in his coat. Not that he planned on challenging anyone tonight, but it was far better to be prepared than not. 

"Adam!" a familiar voice said from behind him. He turned to see Amanda and Rebecca walking in along with a young woman he wasn't familiar with. 

"Amanda," he said with a smile. "Rebecca."

Amanda hugged him tightly, then stepped back. "I'm going to go find Duncan and see what he has to say for himself."

The other young woman stepped up to him. "Hi, I'm Michelle," she said, offering her hand. Methos took it and found that she had a nicely firm handshake. 

"Adam Pierson," he told her. "Did you show up on Rebecca's front lawn?"

"More like her front door. I lost my head in Venice but when I woke up on a bridge over one of the canals I figured it was probably the best place to go."

"I took her on for Duncan," Rebecca said as she stepped forward and kissed Methos on each cheek. "It's good to see you, old friend. Michelle? I believe there are quite a few people to meet. Go find Gina and ask her to introduce you around."

Michelle gave Methos a little wink, then headed off without a second glance.

"You took her on for MacLeod?" he asked Rebecca as he offered her his arm. She took it and they started walking slowly around the room. He hadn't seen Rebecca in at least forty years, despite having lived in Paris for so long. It just hadn't been feasible for him to go out to the abbey. Sure, he could come up with reasons to see Marcus Constantine. The man ran a museum and Methos had been in research. Marcus' assistant had been Amy Zoll, for goodness sake. But seeing Rebecca? That would have been hard to explain to her Watcher later on. They'd mostly kept in touch by old fashioned letters.

Then that had stopped too. 

"She's the daughter of a friend of his. He kept an eye on her for years until she got into a car accident. I think he might have tried to teach her himself, but she had a bit of a crush and you know how badly that can go," Rebecca sighed. 

He did indeed. It did no good to either the student or the teacher if that sort of thing was allowed to flourish. Mac would have tried to nip that in the bud, but a headstrong new Immortal who'd known him for ages? Of course he'd shipped her off to an abbey and a far more suitable teacher.

"How long did she make it?" he asked quietly. 

"A few years," Rebecca said, voice just as soft. "I wish she'd listened when I told her she needed more training, but she was determined to take a break, see the world. I'd have taken her to Venice, but she didn't want to wait."

Methos nodded. Rebecca had always been a firm believer in guiding her students, but not ordering them. If Michelle had left the abbey half-trained, intent on seeing the world, it wasn't because Rebecca had sent her or not told her the dangers. 

"Well, now she gets a chance to finish training," he pointed out. "Or she could blow it off and lose her head again."

"Pretty much," Rebecca agreed. "It's up to her. I think maybe she'll at least try to train more. I suspect losing her head was not what she had planned for Venice. I also think she'll probably steer clear of that city for a while. I understand she fell into a canal her last day there, during the fight. How ignominius - to fall in, then get out only to lose her head right after."

Methos knew he shouldn't laugh. Those canals could be disgusting and if she'd fallen into one as she died, that was enough to put someone off Italy entirely for a good few decades at least. But he did laugh, because, well, falling into a canal in Venice was certainly a life experience that would stay with you, even after death.

"Now, catch me up on yourself," Rebecca told him. "I hear you made it to the final bout. I wasn't surprised."

"Thank you, I think," Methos said. "I did make it to the end. And no, I don't know what happened. I'm trying to figure it out, but I honestly don't know if it's possible."

Rebecca smiled at him and patted his arm. "Don't worry too much about it. I think what matters is that we have a chance to see our friends again."

She was right, of course. At least in part. In all the centuries Methos had known Rebecca, she'd always been excellent at seeing the good in others. Sure, sometimes it got her into difficult situations, but she just kept doing it. 

Methos nodded. "I'm trying to think of it that way."

"Good," she said. "Now let's go see how much trouble Michelle is getting into."

* * *

It wasn't as if everything with Sean and Keane was settled. Keane still wasn't certain about Duncan, regardless of Sean's assurances that Duncan hadn't been in control of himself. But things were better. Keane didn't seem inclined to challenge him on sight now and Sean had promised Duncan that they could sit and talk some time in the next few days.

That taken care of, Duncan decided to try and make the rounds at the party. There were so many people there. Not all Immortals, of course, but plenty were. 

"Duncan MacLeod!" a woman's voice said from behind him. "And where did Fitz go off to?"

Duncan turned to see Carolyn Mortimer. She was grinning at him, somehow looking utterly at home in modern clothes, her hair pulled back neatly.

"Carolyn," he said, taking her offered hand and kissing it. She laughed and shook his hand instead. 

"Duncan. We are past the year 2000! Please. I am trying to learn current manners."

He smiled and nodded. "Well, you'll certainly have a chance now. It's good to see you." He hadn't been in Paris when she'd died, but he'd heard about it after the fact. She'd asked her friends not to be present at her death, not wanting someone else to be targeted if they were seen to receive her quickening. He'd always thought that was pretty noble, but then that was Carolyn. She'd cared a great deal about her friends, even if she was also willing to play pranks on them.

"So, I did see Fitz come in, yes?" she asked. "How is he? Did he do well in the Game?"

Duncan sighed softly and shook his head. "Not as well as he should have," he told her. "But he is here now. I'm sure he'd be glad to see you."

"I'd like to surprise him," she said, grinning. "I am told that I am one of the earliest returnees?"

Duncan thought for a bit. Methos had said it was around two hundred years or so. Carolyn had lost her head in the early 1800s, or so he recalled. That would certainly put her right at the edge. 

"Sounds about right," Duncan told her. "I haven't met anyone who lost their head much more than about two centuries back."

Carolyn smiled and shook her head a little. "Then I am lucky indeed, to have been on that cusp. Alas, my dear Jean-Paul could not be returned with me, but that is the life of an Immortal, yes?" She sighed and turned to look at the party. "Come dance with me, Duncan? Tell me a bit about the world as it is now? Or did you lose your head not long after me?"

"Of course I'll dance with you," Duncan told her, taking her hand and leading her towards the dance floor. "And no, I concede that I kept my head right until the end."

"Oh!" She stepped back a little to look at him. "Then am I perhaps dancing with the very winner of our Game?"

Duncan shrugged. "We don't know. The last match ended without either of us remembering how it went."

"Who was the other challenger?" she asked. "I must know!"

Duncan looked around. Methos had been over at the edge of the room not long ago, but now he wasn't there. Duncan frowned, certain he couldn't possibly pinpoint Methos on sense alone when the room was teeming with Immortals. But there was something. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was Methos, right where Duncan thought he should be now. 

"Right over there," he said, pointing out Methos to Carolyn. "Adam Pierson. He's a good friend."

"Ah! Doctor Adams!" she said. "We met when I was younger. He was quite charming! I didn't know you knew him!"

"Oh, I didn't," Duncan explained. "Not then. We only met recently, but we got to be good friends then. I didn't want to fight him. I don't think he wanted to fight me." At least he hoped not. What little he could remember from the fight was that they'd talked before and agreed that they'd take care of things for each other.

"Ah, but you had to," Carolyn sighed. "I admit, Duncan, I am glad that I did not have to see such a time. Perhaps now I will. Do you know?"

Duncan had to shake his head. "I don't. I hope not. It would be nice to be able to say it's all over and none of us have to fight anymore, but Adam already had to." And he'd seemed okay after, if exhausted. And of course he was exhausted. They'd just finished the Gathering and there he was, fighting again. "And I know not everyone who's come back is friendly."

Carolyn sighed and leaned her head on Duncan's shoulder. "How horrid. I suppose I shall have to brush up on my swordwork. There are so many years and years of technique I've missed out on! Gina has offered to show me some new things she learned in the past two hundred years. Sean asked if I would like to stay with him, but he's a bit removed from Paris and I want to see the whole city! So much has changed, Duncan!"

"I bet if you talk to Fitz, he'll show you around," Duncan suggested, which got a hearty laugh from Carolyn. He'd always liked that about her - she was well willing to get in on a good joke.

"Oh, I am quite certain you are right!" She leaned up to kiss Duncan's cheek. "My dear friend, Duncan MacLeod, it is so good to see you."

"My dear Lady!" Fitz's voice came from off to the side. "Carolyn Mortimer! I had thought to never see your like again!"

Carolyn laughed and smiled up at Duncan before turning to greet Fitz.

"MacLeod! You scoundrel, hiding her away from me." Fitz came up on Carolyn's other side and took her hand as she offered it to him.

"Oh no, I'm not getting in the middle of that," Duncan said. "Carolyn, it is wonderful to see you. I'd love to show you more of the city. But I think Fitz might outbid me there." He smiled at her, then at Fitz, who winked at him. Then he left them to their flirtation and went to find Amanda. It was entirely possible that she'd want to dance.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duncan and Amanda spent a very nice night together, but meanwhile in Watcher HQ they've got wind of some trouble brewing and need to figure out what they want to do about it, if anything.

Joe had spent the previous evening camped out in a car with Amy and a few others, watching Immortal after Immortal arrive at the de Valicourts' home. How they'd made it through the night with no fights breaking out, he really wasn't sure, but he'd put his money on none and made out like a bandit in the Watchers' pool on the event.

Everyone who'd been out watching the party had shown up late the next morning. Well. Everyone except Amy, who was waiting in Joe's office when he got in.

"Your office too full of interns?" he asked as he hung up his coat and went to sit down. "I sent mine to go keep an eye on MacLeod. He should be easy after going back to Amanda's hotel. They'll have breakfast in bed, then he'll brood a bit."

"While I don't doubt that you're right," Amy said as she closed her laptop and slid it into her bag, "we have a bigger problem than the interns."

"We have plenty of bigger problems," Joe said. "What's the one _you're_ talking about?"

Amy got up and shut his office door, then went back to pull her chair close to the desk. "I've got word that a couple of the less than savory types have been talking."

"Such as?" he asked. "There are levels of unsavory here."

"I've heard Kalas and Xavier St. Cloud met yesterday evening. Kalas' new Watcher was a student of Don Salzer back in the day. He'd not happy to see Kalas back."

"None of us are happy about it," Joe told her. "We had a party when he lost his head. And believe me, I had a nice celebratory drink when Mac finally got Xavier." In fact, he'd done so almost every time Mac had taken down some creepy megalomaniac with designs on mass murder or world domination. Or both. They all had had picks for Immortals they wanted gone.

Amy nodded. "I know. And you know back before the Gathering, I'd just be observing it all, seeing how it played out and crossing my fingers for a good outcome. Now…"

Joe didn't move. Amy Zoll wasn't someone he'd ever pegged as being open to interfering. There were always a few you kept an eye on in case they got the idea in their heads. And there were always some who wouldn't do it, but would talk about it. Then there had been a handful who would turn a blind eye to a limited amount of contact. Amy had always fallen into the latter category. 

"Now they know more," he ventured. "Kalas, Xavier, they know who took them down and they know they're getting a chance at revenge."

"If this was just a case of vengeance-fueled Immortals going after each other, I wouldn't be quite as worried," Amy told him. "But they're teaming up. My source told me they're talking about the rules not mattering now. That if the Gathering meant nothing but a second chance, why follow the same rules as before. A couple of people mentioned some of the younger Immortals have talked to them too. No big names, but if they'd survived longer they might have been."

"Well. Shit." It was first thing in the morning, and Joe hadn't replaced the bottle of whiskey he had always kept in his desk. They'd finished it off in Scotland, waiting for the end. So, no stiff drink to deal with this latest heap of bull.

"I know," Amy sighed. "They're going to get a mob together, I just know it. They'll find some way to network and get together every terrifying asshole we've ever seen. The Kurgan was spotted in New York last night. Slan Quince lost his head pretty quickly back in Seacouver but…" She hesitated before continuing. "Morgan Walker's around."

Joe scowled. It was a damn good thing his daughter wasn't in the area. She'd transferred to the New York office a few years back to follow her new assignment and she'd stayed even after he lost his head. Last he'd spoken to her, she was working on reorganizing their artifact archives. She was well away from Walker, thank God. But that didn't make him any less dangerous to Methos, who'd taken his head. 

"What a mess," Joe muttered. "So what do we want to do?"

"I don't know yet," Amy admitted. "We could just flat out tell them."

"But then the Council would likely come down on us like a ton of bricks," Joe replied. "Or not. Maybe they won't. Mac and Methos were both pretty good options, honestly. I dunno if they'll want to go back to the possibility of Kronos."

"Don't even talk to me about them. I'm waiting on a call back from someone I trust in Bordeaux. I'm not looking forward to it."

"But we have to," Joe told her. Much as they might want to pretend that only the good ones had come back, that the worst of them were long gone and never coming back, the fact of the matter was that they knew the assholes were around. And now they were angrier than before they'd lost their heads.

"We'll have to figure something out," Amy sighed.

"We will," Joe said. "We don't really have an alternative."

********************

It was a little strange, waking up somewhere other than his house in Scotland. Over the years Duncan had gotten very used to it. The bedroom floor had always been cold in the morning when he put his feet down on it. There was a comforting scent to it, familiar and welcoming. He'd liked it there, even if it had been isolated and he'd wondered every day when it might all come to an end. 

But then he'd had to leave. Or rather, he could have stayed, but there was more to deal with in Paris - not to mention Seacouver and everywhere else he'd lived in the past few hundred years - and he'd left. In the near future he'd have to go back up there and properly close up the house. But it could wait. It would wait. Now he'd had a few nights in Methos' guest room, which was perfectly nice and also somehow very Methos. The bed was far softer than he was used to, and yet also spare. The walls had some inscrutable artwork and the chair in the corner seemed to be more for looking at than sitting on. It wasn't the sort of room he liked, but he had liked waking up knowing someone was around.

It wasn't quite the same waking up in a hotel room with Amanda in bed next to him, but that was good too. It had been a few days of things Duncan had thought he wasn't ever going to experience again. People he had thought gone forever. He sat up a little in the bed and tried to relax. He'd spent so many mornings with Amanda, but he'd never really thought about how much he had missed the sense of her nearby. Now, well, he couldn't _not_ think about it. He wondered if he would notice the precise moment when he stopped feeling it when they went their separate ways later in the day. Would he want to take it with him somehow, so he wouldn't lose it again. 

As the sun rose and rays started to peek through the curtains in the room, Duncan stretched out and thought about the people he'd gotten to see again. While he'd only lost Amanda and a few of the others late in the Game, people like Richie, Fitz, Darius, Sean, Rebecca… they'd all been gone far too long. 

Thinking of Sean, they'd made plans for lunch. Duncan wasn't sure where Richie had ended up for the night - hopefully he'd gone back to Methos' place and taken over the guest room for the night. If not, he seemed to have hit it off with a few of the other younger Immortals at the party, so perhaps they'd all gone out after. 

Duncan reached for his phone and checked it. Two texts from Richie, who had taken to texting like he'd been born doing it, telling him that he was going out for beers with Michelle Webster and Stephen Keane and a couple of Robert and Gina's other friends. That was a little horrifying, but also not entirely unexpected. He'd been talking with them for most of the evening while Duncan himself caught up with Fitz and Sean and Methos apparently caught up with Rebecca. Duncan hadn't even realized Methos knew Rebecca, but then they were both some of the older Immortals in Europe, so he supposed they'd at least have been aware of each other. 

There was a text from Methos, telling Duncan he was home and that his apartment was nicely quiet and empty. Duncan considered that one for a bit. It was possible Methos was just telling him he was glad to have the space and peace. It was also possible he was sarcastically telling him he was glad to have the space and peace. It was _also_ possible he was actually trying to tell Duncan that he wanted him back. But then he probably would have just outright said so. Methos did tend to be fairly plainspoken when it came to what he wanted. And he did like his privacy.

"What's got you up so early?" Amanda murmured from under the covers to his side. Duncan set his phone down without texting anyone after all. They could wait. They could all wait.

"The sun," he said, wrapping his arms around her as she stuck cold feet against his calves. He yelped softly just to amuse her and was rewarded with a mischievous smirk and a kiss. 

"Well, the sun is going to be there in another hour," she pointed out. "Whereas I know you must have a day full of being you."

"What does that mean?" he asked. 

Amanda smiled at him and kissed him again. "You know what it means. You've taken full responsibility for all of this, regardless. You know you didn't take everyone's head, right?"

"I know," he assured her. "Believe me. I know. But I took enough heads in my time. More than enough. You know, Methos already got challenged again? Sometimes I wonder if sitting out for so long at the end just made it go on longer than it had to."

Amanda sighed and rested her head on his chest. "Maybe in terms of time," she admitted. "But it's not like everyone else was done and couldn't find you. Methos knew where you were, at the very least, and he didn't come looking."

"But did he hold out because I was?" Duncan mused.

"You could ask him," she told him. "Look, I know you've got a lot you probably want to do. People you want to see. Well, I do too. I've got enemies of my own, and old friends to check in with. So let's enjoy the time we have here and I'll be back to bother you in a few weeks. Don't lose your head while I'm gone!"

Duncan smiled. "I'll try not to. It would be a shame to lose it now, after everything." He hadn't thought that much about Amanda needing to go look in on people, reconnect. But it made sense. She was three times his age, and while he was well-versed in how easily she'd made enemies over the years, she must have also made plenty of friends. They didn't talk much about it. He was coming to realize just how little he talked about other Immortal friends with people like Amanda and Methos. But then, for centuries he'd always just thought that they'd end up having to face each other some day.

"Exactly," Amanda said. "Will you keep an eye out for Rebecca? She's got Michelle back and you know how much of a handful she is."

He groaned at the memories of why he'd packed her off to Rebecca in the first place. "I do know, yes."

"Good. Now. Let's pretend all of that doesn't exist and I'll order us some breakfast and we can entertain ourselves until it gets here."

Duncan laughed and kissed her. "You know, sometimes you have very good ideas."

********************

The apartment had been very quiet when Methos had gotten home the night before. He'd marveled at it for a while, then taken the chance to clean up a bit. Not that there was a whole lot to clean, but there were sheets to change in the guest room and blankets to fold in the living room. First, he texted MacLeod to comment on the emptiness of the apartment. He didn't really mind having him as a guest, but there was a notable difference between being alone at home and being at home with another Immortal or two around. Next he put the dishes in the dishwasher and set that going, put a load of laundry in, then sat down to continue working on the translation.

It had been four in the morning before he'd paused for sleep. Most of it was done, but there were a few bits he wanted to finesse a little more. He slept in the next morning. Having another Immortal around while he was sleeping tended to make him alert in a way he couldn't really quantify. Even if they didn't wake him, he often woke before them simply because they were there. All the times he'd crashed with MacLeod, he'd made a point of appearing to sleep in just to be a pain.

While coffee brewed, Methos got back to finishing the translation. The whole thing was interesting, though he wasn't sure if it was useful in and of itself. Still it also referenced some other items in the archives that he wanted to see now. 

Just as he was making some of his own notes in the notebook Marguerite had given him, his phone buzzed.

"Joe?" he said, picking it up. "Good timing. I just finished that translation."

"That's great," Joe said. "I'll let Marguerite know. Anything useful?"

"Not terribly? There's some information at the end where he speculates on some rumors about events that happened when a number of Immortals got together in one place and somehow supposedly pooled their quickenings, but he couldn't verify that it ever actually happened."

"I never heard about that."

"Like I said, he couldn't verify it. But he points to some other accounts - also unverified - so if you can take a look at those maybe they say more."

"Huh." Joe paused then and Methos let the silence draw out. He hadn't been the one to make the call, after all. Joe had to have had something to say. So he waited.

"Look," Joe said after a few moments. "We've got a situation and I shouldn't be telling you, but screw it. We need to figure this out."

Methos closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He was uncomfortably sure he knew what was coming. Maybe not in the particulars, but he figured he had at least a vague idea of what Joe was going to tell him. Someone who had a very good reason to hate him and/or MacLeod was probably up to something. And it was something Joe wasn't sure they'd be prepared for or able to handle.

"Right. Hit me," Methos told Joe.

"A couple of your people are… talking with each other."

"Are you calling me from headquarters?" Methos asked. He had to be, otherwise he wouldn't be so careful.

"Yeah, well, we're busy and I can't get away."

"That doesn't bode well," Methos muttered. "So these people, who are talking to each other, are they people I know?"

"One of them, definitely," Joe said. "The other… You probably know who he is. We have no idea if they have more friends?"

"Please tell me it's not Kronos."

"Not yet."

Methos had to get up then and start moving around. He couldn't stay still for this. "Let me get this straight: Two people who probably hate me, or Mac, or both of us, are working together. Neither of them is Kronos. I'm going to guess one is either Walker or Kalas and the other is one of Mac's numerous enemies."

"Option number two, and yeah."

"Oh, fantastic. That's wonderful." Kalas and at least one more person who had very good reason to want MacLeod dead, beyond whatever earlier quarrel they'd had.

"It gets better," Joe sighed. "Apparently they're all for ignoring rules."

Now, Methos himself wasn't always in favor of all of the rules that Immortals like MacLeod often fell back on as reliably holding true with any opponent. Interfering with another match? Taking someone's head while they were dead or knocked out? Those weren't really hard and fast rules he cleaved to. Two or more on one? Well, that could get you hunted quickly. Holy ground was the only one with actual immediate consequences. And consequences that weren't just from getting a shitty reputation. 

"I might want something a little more specific," he told Joe. "You know, just for kicks."

"Yeah, well, that'll have to wait."

Methos sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Joe, is Amy Zoll there?"

"Yeah," Joe said.

"Just hand the phone to her."

He waited while Joe made the decision whether or not to hand the phone over.

"Pierson?" 

"Zoll. Hi. So, Joe's being awfully circumspect about this. Is that because you're there?"

No answer. That was frustrating, but then this was Amy Zoll, who was probably having a rather serious crisis at the moment, having to decide whether to actually work with Immortals or to follow the traditional rules of the Watchers and keep her hands off while the worst Immortals in recent memory teamed up for the sake of killing the two potential winners of the Game.

"Sort of," she said eventually. "This isn't like trying to figure out what's already happened, Pierson. This is actively giving you help against others. We can't just _do_ that."

Methos paused to compose himself. "Do you honestly think we're running on the same system now? Do you truly think the Watchers can possibly continue to operate as they used to? Non-interference was always meant to keep you safe from the Kalases of the world, and to keep us from being influenced by the Luces of your world or threatened by the Geigers and Hortons. It's supposed to keep things fair and even. But things aren't fair or even now. Things are _fucked up_ and they aren't going to get better."

"I know that," she told him. "Believe me, Pierson, I know. But right now we have no guidance. The Council's been shut in their conference room since we got back from Scotland and none of our friends in any of the other hubs have any idea what anyone in the upper ranks wants us to do. All we've been told is to carry on like we always have. Like nothing has changed."

Methos sighed as he heard Joe saying something in the background. She handed the phone over to him and Joe's voice came through louder.

"They want us to somehow magically be doing exactly what we were doing before," Joe said. "But we're short on people and we're short on time. These guys are getting ready _now_ buddy."

"But ready for what?" Methos asked, more to himself than to Joe. "Look, Joe, I'll grab MacLeod and see what we can come up with. For now, tell Marguerite I have that translation and if she has anything else, please send it my way. If you find out anything else about this coalition of shitheads, let me know."

"Yeah. I guess I will," Joe said.

Methos hung up the phone, then looked down at it and thought for a few moments. Mac was with Amanda. Or he had been last night. Methos could try talking to some of the others in the city - Fitzcairn for one should be told that Kalas was around and hunting in some capacity. Darius would want to know that some hunters were out there apparently abandoning any pretense at the rules. Hopefully they wouldn't be foolish enough to disregard the holy ground rule but who knew, really. Just because older Immortals knew better didn't mean some of the younger ones wouldn't give it a try just to see what would happen.

It wasn't like MacLeod would know what to do right now, aside from go looking for Kalas and whoever he had working with him. Darius honestly seemed like a better bet. And it was possible he had heard some stories about the Gathering and the Game that Methos hadn't. 

Right. Darius it was.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe gets some stuff done, goes to meet Darius, doesn't play chess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relatively short chapter this time, but closing in on some action.

"You found what?" Joe asked Marguerite and Thea, who had called from the archives.

"It looks like an actual description of the end of the Game," Thea told him. "But it wasn't catalogued as being about the Gathering because it never mentions that by name. Well. Perhaps it does, but it's a questionable translation."

"More Old Karelian," Marguerite chimed in. "You mentioned that Pierson finished the translation?"

"He did, yeah. But let's go back to this end of the Game thing. What does it say?"

"We don't know yet," Thea pointed out. "It's in Old Karelian and no one down here knows it. See if you can get Pierson to take a look?"

"Yeah, sure," Joe told them. "Look, I was going to call anyhow and see what you have for records on times when Immortals decided not to follow some of the rules. The ones that are more about manners than volcanoes erupting."

"Why would you need that?" Thea asked.

Joe sighed. Explaining this wasn't going to be fun.

"We've had word that maybe some of the recently returned Immortals might be disregarding some of the rules, given that the whole Game might have changed in nature." No further details. No need to go into it all. Not when they had no idea what was going on.

"And you want to know what some of the prior issues were?" Thea guessed. "Sure. We can do that."

"And anything about Immortals teaming up. I know we've had a few who worked in pairs, or got groups together."

"I take it that's one of the rules they're breaking?" Thea asked.

"Let's be honest: It's always been more of a guideline than a rule," Joe said. "But yes. It might be. I just want to be prepared for what we might be seeing."

And if it meant he could warn Methos and Mac, well, that was all for the best. They had won. One of them, anyhow. It wasn't fair that they had to do this again. Of course, it was also possible that this was the fault of one of them, so maybe they did deserve it? Or they'd asked for it? He had no idea.

"Of course," Thea said. "I'll send you word of what we find. In the meantime, if you could have Pierson send over his translation, that would be wonderful. I'm sending Marguerite up with the new pages."

"Sure. Yeah."

Joe hung up and sighed. It looked like he needed to call Methos again. Or he could just go over there. He needed to get the translation, regardless. And well, he knew where Amy was so there was a good chance no one would be spying on them. Certainly, Methos knew enough to sweep his own home for bugs, so Amy probably hadn't bothered. 

After Marguerite had come and gone, leaving a new folder full of papers for Joe to pass along, Joe headed down to the garage and pulled out his phone.

Methos didn't pick up right away, but when he answered the phone he seemed distracted.

"Joe, hey, what's up?" There was another voice in the background and Methos replied in a language Joe didn't know.

"Are you home?" Joe asked him.

"What? No. I'm not. Is Richie sitting on the front stoop, waiting for me or something?"

"No, nothing like that." Joe paused at his car and leaned against it. "Where are you?"

Methos didn't answer at first. He was talking to whoever he was with, apparently arguing, from the sound of it. The other voice was too far away to be recognizable, but it was definitely far less impassioned. Amused, maybe?

"Sorry, Joe. I'm at Darius' church. We're playing chess and he's losing!"

Now Joe could place the voice. Obviously it was Darius in the background. He laughed from somewhere nearby and said something to Methos, who swore.

"Never mind. I lost. He's a monster. New game. Did you need something?"

Joe smiled a little, thinking how strange and good it was to hear Methos and Darius playing chess and bickering over it. Even better that Methos had lost. So the old man wasn't the best at everything. Good to know.

"I was going to see if you had that translation ready. Thea has something else they want you to take a look at if you're done with the first one."

"So I'm working on spec?" Methos asked. "It's like being a freelancer except actually for free."

"Something like that, but you're getting valuable information instead of money, which you don't need." Joe climbed into his car, stowed his cane in the passenger seat, then set the phone to speaker and stashed it in the cup holder. 

"You don't know that," Methos told him. "I don't recall ever showing you my bank statements."

"Good point." 

"Oh, speaking of that," Methos said as Joe pulled out of his space and maneuvered his car out of the garage. It was like a maze in there, full of tightly packed tiny cars.

"Speaking of your bank statements?"

"Yes," Methos said. "You're going to get an envelope in the mail with details about my estate and a storage unit and a safe and some keys. Just ignore all that, okay?"

Joe stopped his car at the garage exit. "Wait, what?"

"Just ignore it! It was in case I didn't make it, but I did, so it's fine."

Joe sighed heavily and turned onto the road. "We'll talk about that when I get there. I'll see you soon."

He hung up and focused on driving. Or tried to. Knowing that Methos had left him information about his estate and access to his things, that was a little sobering. On one hand, obviously Methos wasn't dead and that was good. But it also meant he wasn't going to see the things Methos had intended for him to take charge of in the event of his death. Then too, it meant that Methos trusted him enough to have wanted his things in Joe's hands if he wasn't around anymore. That sort of trust wasn't common from Methos and Joe took a moment to appreciate it, even if it turned out to not be necessary.

When he got to the church there were a couple of people he recognized sitting in the pews at the back. So it seemed not all Immortals had been able to fully re-integrate into society. He knew their faces. He'd have to check them against the lists they'd made when everyone had first come back.

"Joe," Methos said, coming out from the back. "Come on in." He gestured for Joe to follow him.

"Hey. So. Tell me more about this package you sent me?" Joe said as they went back to Darius' apartment. The Watcher they'd had on site had moved into an apartment that had previously been storage in the building. It was entirely possible that Darius knew he was a Watcher. He had to have gotten at least the basics from Methos or MacLeod, given the nature of his death. But he hadn't thrown the man out and he stood to welcome Joe as Joe and Methos walked into his rooms.

"Joseph, welcome," Darius said, holding out his hands to Joe. 

Joe accepted a warm handshake from Darius, then looked around. "It's nice to meet you," he said.

"Our friend here tells me you and your people are trying to get to the bottom of the how and why of our return," Darius said. "Tea?"

Joe considered declining, then nodded instead as he sat down. "Sure. And yeah, we're trying to figure it out. Not having a ton of luck, but we're trying."

While Methos reset the chess board Darius poured tea for all three of them and brought over Joe's cup first.

"Well, I thank you. It is very curious. And I admit, I am relieved to know not all of your people are like the ones who killed me." Darius came over with his cup and one for Methos and took a seat on the other side of the board. "I assumed so, and then Duncan explained the situation to me."

"Yeah, well, I guess it's a good thing whatever brought you guys back didn't bring back Horton and his gang. Most of them are dead now," Joe hesitated, then continued. "Horton was my brother-in-law," he admitted.

Methos sipped his tea while Darius digested all of this. Joe watched him for a moment, then turned his attention to the chess board. 

"I do try to forgive those who have wronged me," Darius said eventually. "But I think this will perhaps take some time. You, however, Joseph, are not responsible for his actions. Unless you told him to come and take my head?"

"Never!" Joe said. "No. I might have taken longer to believe what he was up to, but once I knew…" He sighed. "It was a bad time for the whole organization. Look, you guys aren't supposed to know about that, but Mac, Adam here, they made things complicated."

"Hey! We were far from the first," Methos told him. "As long as you guys have been around there've been exceptions where one of us knew or one of you contacted us."

"Not since I was in the organization!" Joe clarified.

"Well, no," Methos agreed. "That you know of. There might have been incidents you don't know about. If nothing came of them, then what's the problem? You wouldn't have heard about them unless they became problems."

Joe had thought about this a lot over the years. His contact with MacLeod had caused both of them a lot of stress. They were friends, sure. Same with him and Methos. But then there'd always been the potential issue of them making use of information they got from him - or from someone else in Methos' case - and they'd been frustrated with him spying on them and somehow they'd managed to stay friends. But he couldn't honestly say he regretted anything he'd ever told either of them. 

"I guess. Anyhow, things are probably going to have to change. They just haven't decided how yet. While they debate it, we've still got you guys to keep an eye on. And we've got a situation shaping up." To put it mildly.

"I would call Kalas working with someone else a situation, yes," Methos agreed. He leaned over and took out a folder and handed it to Joe. "Here."

Joe took the folder and opened it up. Inside, in neat handwriting and a few typed pages, was Methos' translation of the piece Marguerite had given him. He looked through it, reading some of the notes Methos had made and some of the actual content.

"I noted where the original translation got something wrong and why," Methos told him while he read.

"Was there really one of you guys who could heal mortals?" Joe asked, looking up from the pages. There were plenty of accounts of weird shit - he'd seen a fair amount himself, first hand - but that was a new one to him.

He watched as Methos and Darius glanced at each other and Darius shrugged. 

"We don't know," Methos told him. "I wasn't in that area and neither was Darius. It's possible. It's also possible that whoever it was didn't live that long."

"I knew someone who had visions of the future," Darius added. "She ended up hiding for decades because people thought she was cursed. I hid her for two years. She lost her head some time after that. Maybe a year or so?"

"It's bad enough that we come back from the dead and heal ourselves," Methos pointed out. "Extra powers? They're dangerous to let people know about. So they're hidden. Which makes them hard to verify accounts of."

Joe nodded and kept reading. "What's this about a group using their quickenings together?"

"I have no idea," Methos said. "I had to leave that part for last so I could catch as much nuance as possible from the rest of the piece. Apparently someone he talked to witnessed a group of Immortals use something like that spring I took Mac to, but up in Iceland, and they were able to harness their quickenings together to control things around them and bring another Immortal back after losing his head. But we have no idea who they were or who the dead Immortal was. You guys will have to do that work."

That was definitely the reason Marguerite had pulled that section. Joe read through it a couple of times, then set the folder aside. "I'll give it to Marguerite and Thea," he told them as he took out the papers they'd given him before he'd left. "This is the next thing they wanted you to look at. It's the same author."

"At least I'm familiar with his handwriting," Methos muttered. "Now, how about we team up and see if we can beat Darius at chess?"

Joe laughed and pushed his chair back a little. "No way, buddy. I know he's unbeatable."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duncan faces a challenger he's dealt with before and something very stranger is going on at Watcher HQ.

On his way back to Methos' apartment, Duncan heard from a few people. Richie was apparently spending the day with the group he'd ended up with the night before. Sean had texted Duncan after their lunch and assured Duncan that he'd keep an eye on both Richie and Michelle. It was probably one of the stranger sets of texts he'd ever gotten - something he'd never have been able to even consider the possibility of a few decades back, regardless of the technology being used.

He was just a few blocks from Methos' building when he felt someone nearby. Assuming it might be Richie or someone else he knew, he didn't immediately pull out his sword. Besides, he was in the middle of a public space. Looking around, he didn't see anyone. That was getting downright dangerous in the city. If he could feel someone at such a distance, they could be anywhere. He couldn't prepare the same way. 

Duncan followed the sensation until he turned a corner and there he was: Martin Hyde.

"I wouldn't think you'd just walk up and try me again," Duncan said when he saw who it was. 

"Yes, well, I wasn't planning on it, and then there you were! I thought perhaps you'd be around. Please tell me, who eventually killed you?" Hyde was as smug as ever.

"No one," Duncan said. He could do smug too, if it meant pissing off someone as horrible as Hyde.

"Oh ho!" Hyde laughed. "Are you claiming you won? Well. This would be quite the prize for me, then."

Duncan sighed. This wasn't what he wanted. Was this what Methos had been running from for all those years? For two hundred years prior to Duncan figuring out who he was and Kalas chasing them both? Sure, he'd had hunters after his head before. He'd made himself a target over the centuries and he'd dealt with the consequences. But the idea of having someone want him not because they had something against him but because of what they assumed he carried - or just for the sake of saying they'd killed him - was slightly terrifying. 

"I'm not saying I won," he told Hyde. "I'm not saying anything because I don't know. Is this really necessary?"

"Of course it is! This is a wonderful chance for us to revisit old business!" Hyde took his sword out from his coat and held it up. "Shall we fight, MacLeod? I've never known you to be a coward. And maybe you'll actually be worth fighting if you made it to the very last. All these others, not a single one has been worth the effort in the end."

Duncan frowned and drew his sword. "I bested you before, Hyde. I'll do it again."

"Big talk," Hyde said. "I know your moves now. It's like we fought only yesterday to me."

With that, he attacked. And he was right, as it turned out. He knew Duncan's moves. He seemed to be able to anticipate everything Duncan did. So Duncan stopped trying to fight like himself, instead drawing on what he remembered of things he'd learned over the years but not used frequently. He used moves that he'd always dismissed as underhanded. He could see the uncertainty set in for Hyde, then a bit of fear. 

When Duncan finally won, he wondered if Methos would have been pleased with just how sneaky he'd ended up being. And as Hyde's quickening hit him - for the second time in his life - Duncan thought to himself that this couldn't possibly have been the intent of whatever had happened. This just wasn't right.

* * *

Methos was home, sitting in his living room with music going in the background while he worked on the new translation. When Mac walked in, looking like absolute hell, Methos abandoned his work at the coffee table and got up to meet him.

"Challenge?" he asked, frowning.

Mac nodded. "Martin Hyde. He was harder than before. Knew everything I was going to do."

"Of course he did," Methos said, helping Mac off with his coat. "In his head it's still fresh."

"Is this what it was like?" Mac asked. "When people knew your name?"

Methos sighed and nodded. "Yeah. It was hell. And it probably will be again. It's only a matter of time before people who know start talking to people who don't and my name gets out there and I have to start fending off people who want to take the head of the oldest Immortal. Even worse once they know I made it to the end."

Mac shook his head a little and headed down the hall to the bathroom.

"The soap in there is good for getting blood off," Methos called after him. He heard a vague thank you from Mac, then the closing of the bathroom door. Once he was sure Mac was in the shower, he went to go put on water for tea and pulled out a few bottles of good beer. He also got out his sword-care equipment. Then he went back to the translation.

While there had been some very interesting material in the first piece the Watchers had given him, this one was straight up amazing. The Watcher who had written it had bent the rules a fair amount. Which was far more common than the Council would ever want most of their people to know, really. A ways back, Methos had tried to use a Chronicle about himself as an argument for not being quite so hard on Watchers who had some non-harmful contact with Immortals, but it hadn't exactly worked. And he'd lost the Chronicle to the archives, which was a bit of a pain in the ass. He liked that Chronicle. And the Watcher who'd written it for him. Stefano had been a good man. A little on the over enthusiastic side, but Methos hadn't minded that much.

As he read through this new piece, he was becoming more and more certain that this Watcher and Stefano would have gotten along famously. They'd probably have terrified the Council together, but they'd have likely been able to come up with some really interesting theories, maybe actually figured something out. Then too, it looked like this guy at least had come up with some good stuff on his own. 

The first several pages were a description of the Immortals this Watcher had met over the years and how they were all very old and very wise and Methos had spent a while having to pause between lines to roll his eyes. Sure. They'd all been intensely wise and all-knowing. Except maybe they really had been. He himself had had a teacher once. He'd met Immortals older than himself when he was younger, and yes, some of them had been pretty wise. Hell, Darius was wise and old, so maybe these Immortals had been legit.

There had been four of them all told, and each had, over the years and in different places and at different times, described the same basic scenario. The first had told the Watcher that the Gathering would be a time of strife, when friends would be compelled to fight despite not wanting to harm each other. They said that the power amassed by the few to make it at the end would be so overwhelming it would be visible to observers nearby. They'd all claimed that the Immortals at the end would have expanded senses, both in terms of their ability to sense each other and in terms of their other normal senses. Methos could confirm a lot of that himself. 

But all of that wasn't what was really interesting. What made this not so much about the Gathering was that from there, they had each proposed that if the last two participants had been willing to band together, they could just… end it. They could use the force of their own wills to end the Game without fighting. Now this? This Methos questioned. He'd been there. He'd felt the compulsion. He'd known he wouldn't be able to resist it, no matter how much he'd wanted to. And he'd tried! So had MacLeod. They'd still fought. 

The last one had something a little more interesting to say. And this was where he'd been when MacLeod had arrived. The last immortal in the piece had listened to this Watcher tell him he'd heard similar stories before, then told him that yes, that was all likely true, but that he'd been taught by his teacher and by his teacher's teacher, that there was a way to simply end the whole thing, that those with enough power at the end, they'd be able to just end it, somehow using the power they'd taken in to influence others. To put an end to it all by somehow stopping anyone else from fighting and that anyone who stopped would have, in effect, won.

Just what would happen, and what winning entailed, those were proving to be difficult to figure out. The dialect was tricky and the writer was describing things Methos had no vocabulary for. A lot of what he was trying to work out he was having to rely on context for, and context didn't really help with a lot of this. He was just puzzling through what appeared to be an actual description of the necessary actions when he heard the bathroom door open, then Mac's footsteps in the hallway to the guest room.

"There's tea on," Methos called to him. "And beer. And I can find something stronger if you need it!"

"Tea's good," Mac said as he came back into the living room, dressed in fresh clothes and carrying his sword and a piece of cloth. He took a seat in front of the coffee table and set his sword down on the cloth. Methos appreciated that he'd actually considered putting something down to protect the coffee table, even if the coffee table was a piece of junk he'd picked up at a second hand store for about five Euros.

Methos left his notes on the couch and went to pour tea for them both. 

"So it was Martin Hyde?" he asked.

Mac nodded as he started to clean his sword. "Bastard thought I'd make a good prize."

Methos set the tea down on the end of the coffee table and sat back down on the couch.

"It's tough," he told Mac. "Being a trophy, I mean. It's why I was happy to have someone else draw that fire for a while. Poor sap. Though I guess he's out there now, maybe still spreading his message of peace. Who knows, maybe it's even possible."

"Not with guys like Hyde still out there," Mac muttered. He picked up his sword and got to work cleaning it while Methos watched. He considered telling Mac about what he was working on, but so much of it was still up in the air. He could be wrong about vast swaths of the translation and he wouldn't know just yet. So instead he just continued to watch Mac work.

"Have you noticed something… odd?" Mac asked after a while. He was still focused on his sword, and Methos had gone back to his reading, but now looked up.

"Odd how?" Methos asked. Plenty of odd things had been going on, after all, in this strange post-Gathering Paris.

"After Scotland, when we first came back, I felt… normal. For the first time in a long time," Mac said to him. He gave his sword one last look over, then started to clean up. "But now, it's almost as if I've been taking heads again. And aside from Hyde tonight, I know I haven't."

Methos shrugged. "Maybe it was just exhaustion from that last fight. I know it knocked the hell out of me. Maybe this is just how we'll always feel and we had to… I don't know. Reacclimate to it." Because he'd been feeling it too, beyond that sensation of power under his skin - beyond the quickenings around him feeling like they were reaching out to him. It was all growing more powerful and he didn't know why. Maybe something in this chronicle he was translating would have an answer. Maybe not. Methos picked up his papers and got back to work.

* * *

When Joe got back to the office he didn't stop anywhere else before going and updating MacLeod's Chronicle. It wasn't every day you could add an addendum to a beheading entry stating that your subject had taken the same head a second time. Though maybe those days would become more frequent now.

He was just finishing that up when he heard a knock on his door. When he looked up, Denis was standing in the doorway, hesitating before speaking.

"Denis? What's going on?" Joe asked.

"Uh, so, I was looking for Lucas and I can't find him," Denis said. "We were working on those recordings you asked us to go through? The ones from Scotland? And he said he needed to look at something in the archives, and then he never came back."

Joe sighed. He'd sort of expected at least one of the two to take off. Sometimes they seemed like solid recruits, but the reality of it could come crashing in after a day or two and it wasn't so much fun as terrifying. Sometimes they just plain walked out. But official procedure was to bring them back, at least for a debriefing so they could impress upon the ex-recruit not to tell anyone about any of it. So Joe sighed and stood up from his desk.

"I assume you wouldn't be wasting my time without going down there and checking for him?" he asked Denis.

"Of course not," Denis said. "I went there first. They said he'd been in, then left. So some time between then and now he just disappeared."

"Well, he didn't disappear," Joe pointed out. "He went somewhere. The trick is figuring out where and when. Come on, let's go see what we can find out."

Amy's office door was open, but no one was in there, so Joe kept going. Billings's office was also empty, but Lipov was in his, along with one of his recruit assistants.

"Have you seen one of my little helpers?" Joe asked them.

Lipov looked up. "No. Have you seen one of mine?"

Joe frowned and shook his head. "No. Why?"

Lipov stopped typing and turned to face them. His remaining recruit was still working but Joe could tell she was listening, based on the furtive looks she kept throwing at them.

"I sent her down to the archives to drop off my audio from Shen's last two fights, then she never came back. I figured I had a runner," Lipov said. "How about yours?"

"Archives too," Joe said. "I guess Thea… Was it Thea Dubois you spoke to?"

"No, Philippe," Denis said. "But I could see Ms. Dubois and she didn't contradict Philippe."

Joe looked at Lipov and Lipov looked back at him.

"Let's go talk to Thea," Joe suggested. If she hadn't contradicted her assistant, then yes, it was likely that Lucas and Lipov's other recruit had indeed been there, but where had they gone after? Had they been together? Had one convinced the other to leave? 

Lipov shut down what he was working on and stood. "Come on," he said to his recruit. "Dawson, this is Lene. She's been pretty useful, actually."

"This is Denis," Joe told them. He glanced at Denis and thought a moment. "Yeah, you're pretty good so far, kid," he told him. "Nice to meet you, Lene. Stick around."

"I was planning on it," she said as she gathered up her tablet and bag. "I was set to go to the Academy when you all realized the Gathering was gaining steam and you started shutting things down. I've just been watching this whole thing end from the outside for years now."

Joe and Denis waited for Lipov and Lene, then the four of them headed down to the archives. No one else in the building seemed to be missing, but then, it was hard for Joe to tell. There were agents who'd come in since the Scotland Incident, as some of them had started referring to it, joining them from field offices to report on things. There were new recruits he'd never met, some who'd been there for a few days and some who'd only started that morning. Other people had gone out to field offices, or left the continent to go to other hubs. It was almost impossible to figure out who should be there and who wasn't and vice versa.

Down in the archives, Thea was scowling while trying to explain to a group of new recruits that no, they could not touch anything yet without her express permission. Yes, she would know if they moved something. No, they could not just excuse it by saying they had someone else's permission.

"Thea?" he said, walking over to where she was lecturing. 

Thea turned to glance at him, then looked back at the recruits. "Okay, go, you have assignments to complete. Find the items on the list and bring them back to me. Only those items!"

As the recruits hurried off into the stacks, Thea gave Joe her full attention.

"What's going on?" she asked him. "Did your friend get you that translation back yet?"

"Not yet," Joe told her. "That's not why I'm down here. Have you seen Lucas? My new recruit? Well, one of 'em."

"And mine?" Lipov asked. "They were both supposed to come down here, but neither of them came back after."

"They were both here," Thea said. "Not for long." She went over to a cart full of books and boxes and looked through it, checking notes on items, then taking a couple off of the cart. "This one came in from Mia. She's working with you?" she asked Lipov. "She had recordings for Shen's files. Lucas said he needed that Chronicle I had your friend translating," Thea told Joe. "He took a copy of the original and a copy of the first translation. That's why I assumed it was done and you had one of your little munchkins helping you go through it."

"Neither of them know Karelian!" Joe said. "If they did, I'd have just asked them!"

Thea glared at him. "I don't know any of these new people. They're unknowns until they prove themselves to me. You could have had someone double checking. Lucas could be some linguistic prodigy like Pierson was supposed to be. Except the real deal instead of a lying impostor."

"You gave him copies?" Joe asked.

"Well I didn't give him the actual book," Thea explained.

"So, he's gone. Mia is gone. He has some very… sensitive information?" Joe said. His head was starting to pound. This wasn't quite like their typical quitters. They usually didn't actually take anything with them. This did not bode well.

"Who else is gone?" Joe asked, looking around. "Were Mia and Lucas talking?"

"They were," said Philippe from behind Thea. "They were arguing about something but I told them they had to take it out to the hall so they didn't disturb anyone in here."

Joe rubbed at his temples. "What were they arguing about?"

"I couldn't really tell. Something about needing more information, then Lucas said something about it not mattering, it was enough. That's when I told them to leave." Philippe shrugged and turned back to his computer.

Thea, for her part, had started to look concerned. She motioned for Joe, Lipov, and the two recruits to follow her into her office. Once she'd shut the door, she turned to them.

"What, precisely, do you think is happening?" she asked them. 

Joe sighed and took a seat without bothering to ask.

"I wish I knew," he admitted. Having all the details would be great, but he rarely had all the details. Watchers, as a rule, liked to know things. They liked to be able to put the pieces together. Immortals usually didn't have all the information at any given time. They'd be working with incomplete data. Watchers, on the other hand, had records and files and chronicles and could look up information when necessary to find out who was fighting whom and what their histories were. It wasn't that often that they went into a situation with so little.

"As far as I can tell, we're missing at least two people right now. People we barely know. And they appear to have been at least working together on _something_. They have a rough translation of an old and fairly sensitive document, as well as the original text, though not the original piece itself. And they might not be the only ones gone."

Lipov frowned. "We should check on who's here," he suggested. "At the very least we can see if the people we know are around. Did you see Zoll?" he asked Joe.

"No. She wasn't in her office," Joe said. "Billings was gone too. But we've all been in and out in the past week."

"Amy Zoll was in a few hours ago. She said she was going to take her new kids out for some field training and she wanted to make sure the books she'd borrowed were back down here," Thea told them. "Billings… I haven't seen in a couple of days."

Joe frowned. "That's not good. I'm going to text Amy."

He pulled out his phone and started to type something in when he realized he had more of a headache than he'd had a few minutes before. And not just a headache. He was feeling a little sick, really. Woozy. He reeled a little, glad he was already sitting down.

"Woah," he muttered. "Sorry guys, I think maybe something's…" he looked up and realized that Thea had also taken a seat and Lipov was leaning both hands on her desk. Lene was holding onto the doorframe but Denis was sliding to the floor.

"Shit," Joe said as his vision started to blur. "Fucking Xavier St. Cloud."

He tried to focus, hoping that his phone wouldn't mangle the text too much. He added Methos to it, then tried to just send the name 'Xavier' to both him and Amy. Hopefully one of them would figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Watchers are in trouble and it's time to mount a daring rescue!

Duncan often found himself restless after taking a head, but also exhausted. It was possible for him to take a nap, but only if he really worked at meditating his way into a more relaxed state. He both wanted to pace the neighborhood and never move again. He remembered taking Hyde's head the first time and how it had ended up making him feel like a caged animal. It wasn't much different this time around. Except this time he didn't have his own home to move around in - something he knew he should rectify soon. 

While pacing around Methos' guest room had worked at first, eventually he needed more space. On the barge he'd always had a project to work on. That boat had needed constant looking-after, which he'd liked. The same had been true of the cottage in Scotland, though he hadn't been taking any heads there. Not until the end, anyhow. Here, well. It wasn't his place to tidy or fix or work on. So he went into the kitchen to see if there were at least dishes to do.

No such luck. Methos had apparently spent his time alone putting his apartment into the shape he wanted, which included doing the dishes and the laundry before he'd gone back to the project he was working on. Duncan looked around the kitchen and considered making something for dinner. He'd looked in every cabinet twice when Methos came to the kitchen doorway.

"Is it Hyde that's got you all fidgety?" Methos asked as he edged past Duncan to get himself some coffee. "Because no one else in this building uses the roof and it's pretty good for practicing if you need to do something to calm down."

"Am I distracting you?" Duncan asked. He tried to make it a joke by smiling a little as he asked, but he was fairly sure Methos could see right through that.

"Yes," Methos said, shrugging. "But it's understandable. It's that horrible nervous energy. I hate it. But I do need to finish this up and having you haunt my apartment like some sort of hyperactive ghost is a little more than I can ignore."

Duncan laughed at that. Really, he should have asked about practice space or at least a place to do katas right from the outset as soon as he'd gotten back here after Hyde. Methos didn't seem angry, however. Just slightly annoyed. A slightly annoyed Methos was practically a normal Methos, and Duncan could deal with that.

"I'll go up to the roof in a bit," he promised. "Now what is it you're working on?" He got himself a mug and reached for the coffee, then stopped himself.

Methos glanced at him, then put the kettle on. "Herbal tea for you, I think. Come on. I'll tell you about it while the water heats." He led Duncan out of the kitchen and back into the living room. The papers he was working with looked roughly identical to the ones he'd had before, but obviously they were something new if Methos was still working on them.

"So, this is the same author as the last piece," Methos said as he sat down. "Part of the same book, I suspect. He spoke to a number of us. Old ones, looks like. Or the students of old ones. No one I know by name, but then, we were so spread out when I was younger, it wasn't as easy to just run into a bunch of us all the time. Now, with airplanes? Entirely different world."

"Any faster transportation, I'd guess," Duncan said. After all, if you had to walk or ride a horse, distances were a lot more of an obstacle to meeting random Immortals. Being able to just pick up and go to another country? That changed things.

"Exactly," Methos said. "Anyhow, he spoke to these guys and they all told him fairly identical tales about what their teachers and teachers' teachers had told them the Gathering would be like. There are minor differences, of course, but what's striking is how close they were to the truth."

"And this is how far back?" Duncan asked, leaning in to look at the pages, even though it only took a cursory glance to know that he couldn't read them at all. 

"Long enough," Methos muttered. "Fifteen hundred years? Maybe? It's sort of a mid-form between Old Karelian and some of the more modern versions. Which is making it a lot of fun to translate, I'll tell you. Anyhow, this is all being written well after the fact. And these are tales passed down from older teachers. People closer to my age probably. Maybe even older."

The thought of someone older than Methos was a strange one, but Duncan nodded. It wasn't like they had a date for when this had all started.

"You probably hadn't even been born by the time these guys died. Anyhow, so they have these stories about visible power. About the compulsion to fight. And they're all pretty close. And then there are these bits about ending the Game without fighting."

Duncan looked up sharply. That wasn't at all what he'd expected to hear.

"I was always told that was the only way," he said slowly. "That's what Connor said. That's what Ramirez told him."

"I know. And it's what I've always been told. But then we have people like Darius, your friend Coltec, even my impersonator back in Seacouver. People who don't want to fight. Who try to tell us there are other ways. What if they're right?"

Duncan stared at him. Methos had always been one of the most pragmatic men he'd ever met. He'd lived for millennia and he had always been quite clear that you could _want_ not to fight, but that you always had to be _ready_ to fight. It had been a hard lesson to accept. But he'd been right.

"You can't be serious," he said.

Methos shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted to Duncan. "I don't think we can just go around saying to some shit-head like Martin Hyde that we should just lay down our swords and stop fighting. But what if there was a way to just… Make it end?"

Duncan thought back to just a few hours earlier, to the frustration at having to fight yet again. He thought about all the people he'd fought over the centuries and how many of them might have been willing to stop, if given a choice that wouldn't get them killed. If Methos was willing to even entertain the idea, well, it was worth looking at.

"Look, I'm not saying it's actually possible," Methos said, having clearly seen the look on Duncan's face. "I'm just saying, if it was, I wouldn't be opposed to it. It's not like I actually enjoy fighting all the time."

"But what if people don't stop?" Duncan asked. "Like Culbraith."

"See, that's the trick, isn't it. If it's possible to make them stop too? All the assholes who wouldn't do it just when we ask? Then that's amazing." Methos looked down at his papers and sighed.

Duncan nodded and sat back to think about that. It would mean somehow either removing all of the people who wouldn't be willing to stop on their own, or removing their desire to keep fighting. It was one thing to bring people back, but to just wipe them out, or tinker with their minds and personalities, that was different. He wasn't sure he was okay with that. On the other hand, he'd done his fair share - more than, really - of taking the heads of those who came looking for fights. But those were fair fights. There was honor to that.

Maybe that was the only way, though. Maybe the only way to end the Game, truly end it, was to make sure no one could keep fighting. And if they weren't all dead, then there had to be some other way.

Duncan sighed. "Well, as you said, it might not even be possible. It's a moot point if it's all just a theory, right?"

"Right," Methos agreed. He frowned and pulled out his phone. "Cab? I think Joe just butt-texted me. That, or he somehow thinks I'm his chauffeur as well as his translator."

Methos tapped out a reply to Joe while Duncan reached over to look at the translation he'd been doing. Sure, he couldn't read the original, but he could read Methos' work just fine, provided he'd used English, or one of the other languages Duncan actually knew.

> release the power together. Timing is very important (essential?) for the power to be <strike>given</strike> transferred(?) to people/everyone/you?

Or maybe not. The passage he had picked up looked like it was about somehow getting a group of Immortals together and using the power they had to exert their will on those around them? But they had to be careful about it or it could go wrong.

"Huh." 

Duncan looked up. "What?"

Methos was staring at his phone. "My text won't go through and Joe's phone is going straight to voicemail."

Duncan frowned. That didn't seem like Joe, especially if he'd just texted Methos, even by mistake.

"Wait… This went to me and someone else," Methos added. He tried the number, only to hear a phone ring from outside his apartment in the stairwell. He looked at his door, then got up to go check it. "Well fuck me," he muttered, opening the door. "Amy Zoll. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Duncan stood as she came into the apartment at Methos' gesture, followed by two other people.

"Did you get this text from Joe Dawson?" she asked, showing her phone to Methos.

"I did, obviously. I just tried to call you, I believe. Joe's not picking up or getting his texts."

"I know," Amy said, tucking her phone away. "I've tried a few of the others at the offices and no one is answering. No one. Not even the new recruits who are always supposed to answer because they're new and we need to keep tabs on them."

Methos looked over at Duncan. "This is potentially very bad," he explained.

"I gathered that," Duncan told him. "So what do we do?"

* * *

When Joe came to he was tied up and lying on the floor in Thea's office along with the others he'd been in there with when they'd all passed out. There were a few more people with them, all at various stages of waking up from apparently being drugged. Joe could see the rest of Thea's recruits along with Marguerite and Phillipe as well as two other Watchers. It wasn't that big an office and it had already been crowded with Joe, Denis, Lipov, Lene, and Thea. 

"What's going on?" Lipov asked as he tried to raise himself up a little.

"Xavier St. Cloud," Joe muttered. "He liked gassing people. We should count ourselves lucky that he didn't just kill us. He's done that before."

"Oh, right. I hate that guy," Thea groaned from the corner. "But how did he manage to gas the whole building?"

"He probably had help," Joe said. "Inside help." He'd worried about something like this, but supposedly they'd been at least giving each recruit a minor vetting. Then again, a minor vetting wouldn't have caught everything and obviously they'd missed something important, like at least one of the recruits having been co-opted by St. Cloud. 

"Who the hell would help one of them against us?" one of the other Watchers asked. "We haven't done anything to them!"

Joe sighed and closed his eyes. Of course they had. They'd spied on them for years, and St. Cloud had known about them before he'd died. Most Watchers didn't think about it that way, but then they were so focused on the job, on documenting, that they could forget that Immortals were still people. People who might not appreciate a group of other people watching and documenting what they did. People who might have committed any number of crimes and who would not like those crimes known by people who could, in theory, report them at any time.

"They don't really care, sometimes," Lipov pointed out. "Look at Kalas. He was just looking for information and he didn't care who he hurt or killed to get it."

"Exactly," Joe agreed. "St. Cloud probably wants something. He might be working with another Immortal. We have no way of knowing what's up yet."

"Excuse me?" Denis piped up from the corner he was in. Everyone turned to him as much as they could. "Um, but, does the name Koren mean anything to anyone?"

The recruits had no way of knowing who that was. They'd have had no reason to be told yet. They had plenty of nasty Immortals in town already without adding Kronos and his crew to the mix. And besides, they'd had no reports of him in Paris thus far.

"Where did you hear that name?" Lipov asked before Joe could get his thoughts together.

"Lucas was on the phone with someone yesterday. I was listening to a recording so maybe he thought I couldn't hear him, but there was a quiet section and he was telling someone on the phone that if Koren said it was today, then that was the plan. I thought it must be another Watcher?"

"He's definitely not a Watcher, Denis," Joe sighed. "He's one of the worst Immortals we've ever documented. He's thousands of years old. A real asshole."

"Aww," said a familiar voice from the doorway as it opened. "And here I thought I was the worst you'd seen. How shall I ever recover?" There was no mistaking who that was. Not with a rasp like that.

"Yeah, well, you're up there too, buddy," Joe shot back. "Birds of a feather, I guess."

Kalas laughed. "Oh, now I'm not certain if that's meant as a compliment or an insult. Come now, Mr. Dawson, I have need of you and Ms. Dubois. And a few of these eager young things."

Kalas himself grabbed Joe and two of their former recruits came in after him to take Thea and two of the tied up recruits. Neither of them took Denis or Lene. But Joe didn't hold out much hope that they were safe in the long run. Not with these jackasses apparently having the run of the place.

"What, no protests?" Kalas asked as they marched Joe, Thea, and the others out to the main room. 

"We know what you've done in the past," Thea muttered.

"Oh yes, I killed that man in the bookstore. Salzer, wasn't it?" Kalas laughed and Joe scowled at the sound. "Yes, I suppose you wouldn't be that pleased with me, would you."

Out in the archives Joe saw a handful of Watchers free and looking around. They were all either new recruits or field agents who hadn't reported back in when the Gathering had gone so strangely. This would appear to be why. They'd been waiting to help the Immortals they knew about take over the Watcher European headquarters. Fantastic.

"It's not here," one of them said, coming up to Kalas. Though Joe did note that he kept a fair distance between himself and the very deadly Immortal he was speaking to. Not entirely stupid, then, which was a shame. If they were stupid then they'd be more likely to fuck up.

Kalas frowned and turned to him. "And are you certain you were looking in the correct place?"

"I... I believe so." The rogue Watcher glanced around. "It's been a while since any of us were in the archives."

"That's because you almost destroyed two separate chronicles, Geoffrey," Thea told him. "Pity for you that you didn't take better care, hmm?"

Joe held back a groan. Thea wasn't the best at holding her tongue, apparently, even in the face of a homicidal Immortal holding her captive. Personally, Joe was hoping to not antagonize Kalas. Hopefully his text had gone through to Methos, Amy, or both. He couldn't feel his phone in his pockets, so he couldn't check. They would have taken any phones away when they tied everyone up and stashed them.

"Then _you_ will find it," Kalas told Thea. "I'm looking for a book one of your people has been researching. It's a particular little thing, full of old stories and tales, written in Russian."

"The Russian books are all in the Russian headquarters," Thea told him. "You could go there and check."

Kalas thrust Joe into the hands of one of his assistants, then grabbed Thea. "It is here," he told her, his face inches from hers. "It is here and you will find it for us." He looked over at the stairs and Joe turned to see who was coming.

"Are they giving you trouble?"

Of course it was St. Cloud. Better than Kronos, for certain, but only by degrees of horrible.

"Not for long," Kalas told him. "Weren't you busy terrorizing the peons upstairs?"

"Koren says he wants Dawson," St. Cloud drawled. "He's quite insistent. And I could only take so much bickering between the other two. They're like children. Ancient spoiled children."

Joe had to admit, that did sound like a good description of Silas and Caspian, at least as far as Methos had described them after the fact. He'd mourned Silas longer than the others, Joe knew that, but he'd also conceded that all three of them had remained horrors through the centuries, Silas included. He might have liked animals well enough, but he hadn't much cared for people, and he'd been responsible for more than a few mortals' deaths.

Kalas was scowling in his direction, then waved a hand at him. "Take him. He's no use to me down here. Now, this one…" he looked at Thea again, whom he was still holding tightly. "She's going to help me find that book, or I will start removing parts of her assistants and using them as bookmarks."

"Charming," St. Cloud muttered as he took charge of Joe and shoved him forward. "Come on. We'll even take the elevator. I got my hand back with this little miracle but I see you're still hobbling around. Pity."

* * *

Much as Mac had wanted to hurry off to the Watchers to check on them, he'd listened when Methos and Amy had advised caution. First, they'd conferred about the text from Joe, trying to figure out what it meant. Did he need a ride somewhere? Was he trying to type a longer word and didn't get to finish? 

It was Amy who figured it out when she realized what letters the C and the B were next to on her phone. She typed X A V into the text screen and watched as it autocorrected.

"Xavier St. Cloud," Methos said, staring at the phone. "He could have gassed everyone. He always did like that trick."

"They'd be dead then," Mac said. "We're too late."

"Not necessarily," Amy said, stopping him. "He used lethal chemicals several times, yes, but he also used non-lethal sedatives quite a lot. It just wasn't as well-publicized. If Xavier wanted to kill us, sure. But if he wanted something from us, that's a different story."

"If Xavier is there, then so is Kalas," Methos pointed out. "And he knows full well that the archives are likely packed with fascinating little tidbits, just like this." He gestured to the papers on his coffee table.

"So what do we do?" Mac asked. "We can't just let them do this."

Methos glanced at Amy, who nodded to him. 

"We won't," Amy said. "There are a couple of ways to get into the headquarters, and I'm guessing one of them is entirely overlooked right now. The thing is, if it is Xavier St. Cloud and Kalas - and who knows who else - they'll feel you guys coming. So we can't just send you through the passage I know."

"Is that the one that ends up in the shoe store?" Methos asked. "I thought that got bricked up when the store had a fire in the back?"

Amy smiled. "It did. There's another that starts on the fourth floor and ends up in the basement of the boutique down the street. They know me there. We can go in first," she said, gesturing to herself and her assistants, whom she'd introduced as Vincent and Nora. Apparently they were married, but Methos didn't really care much. What he cared about was that Amy seemed to trust them, and if Amy trusted them then he was going to go ahead and trust them too. Well, as much as he trusted anyone. Which wasn't much, admittedly, but it was something.

"Right," Methos said. "Good. Then, much as it pains me to suggest this, I think you should go in through the back passage and we'll approach from the front so they know we're there. They have to know that you're not in the building by now, but there'd be plenty of agents still out in the field today, right?"

"True," Amy agreed. "I didn't try any of them yet. I was thinking more about contacting anyone who could check on Joe."

"Reasonable," Methos agreed. "But now we need backup. I don't care who they're watching right now, unless they're actively keeping tabs on St. Cloud, Kalas, and any of the other nastier elements in the city. Or nearby." He frowned. "Did you have anyone on Dexter Koren? Or on Silas or Evan Caspari?"

Amy shook her head. "Not specifically. I got word this morning that Koren and Silas were spotted leaving that submarine base in Bordeaux and I guess someone saw Caspari climbing out of the river nearby. But they're all considered dangerous enough we didn't put agents on each for close surveillance. They had someone doing long-range checks on them though. I can see if he's still out there."

Methos shook his head. "No. He might be compromised. What about the others?"

"St. Cloud definitely had someone watching him. Kalas had a long-range agent assigned, but after what he did…" She scowled. "We just didn't want him getting his hands on any of us again, and we knew he could spot us"

"Do you know either of them?" Methos asked.

"Jean is a classmate of mine from the Academy. He studied under Don for a while, but he was in Brazil when you came through so you never met him. He's a good man, solid," Amy said. "I'll try him. St. Cloud's… I wouldn't necessarily trust. He always reminded me of Geiger."

"Lovely," Methos muttered. "Well, let's see who we can muster up. Mac? Think your assortment of friends would be willing to try and storm the Watcher headquarters?"

"My friends?" Mac asked. "Well. Fitz, definitely. Robert and Gina, sure. Sean, probably not, but he might be willing to try and convince Keane. Richie… I don't want him mixed up in this. Michelle either. They're both too young."

"I don't think they'd agree," Methos pointed out. He was relatively sure Carolyn would be in. Marcus was a 50/50 chance. What he wanted was Rebecca and Darius. Between the two of them they represented a fair amount of power and if what he suspected was actually possible, then he'd need it there. "Let's call as many as we can and see how close they are. We don't know how many mortals they've got working with them. Or how many Immortals, either.

While Mac got to calling friends and quickly laying out the situation, Methos went back over some of the notes he'd been making. It was all a little on the fuzzy side, really. Rumors, guess work, tall tales told around campfires. But this one Watcher had managed to hit on a few accurate predictions. Who was to say that this bizarre theory Methos had been carefully piecing into modern English wasn't also correct?


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Methos puts his plan into action, with the help of Duncan and a host of other friends.

"This should never have happened," Duncan said as they drove. Amy had her recruits in her car and was leading them, though Methos had assured her he knew the way to the headquarters just fine.

"I know," Methos agreed. "But it's happened and it's happening and here we are."

"Methos," Duncan started, then paused. How to even ask this? "Are you sure you don't remember anything from Scotland?" He'd gotten a little more back, himself. A vague picture of the two of them together, power a bridge between them. He could remember pushing at it, wanting it to do something, save something, be useful instead of just _there_. Somehow the power he could feel growing was making things clearer, as if every few hours he gained a little more of something he'd lost.

"Is this really the best time?" Methos muttered as he drove. They weren't technically speeding, but it felt like the roads zipped by them a little faster than they should have all the same.

"No, but there isn't a best time for something like this," Duncan pointed out. He watched as Methos made the split second decision to keep going through an intersection to follow Amy's car closer.

"Fine," Methos sighed. "I remember a little, okay? Not much. Just I knew that it couldn't really end like that. That there had to be something else."

Duncan nodded. Maybe in time they'd both remember more. Maybe eventually they'd remember who had won, and then been desperate enough to bring everyone back immediately.

"Let me ask _you_ something," Methos said. 

"Okay. That's only fair," Duncan agreed. He looked over at Methos, ignoring the sights around them, and noticed that Methos was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were literally white.

"Have you noticed anything… different? Recently, I mean. Aside from everyone being back. I mean, different in how you can feel other Immortals."

Duncan nodded. "It's almost tangible at times. I can still feel people a ways away, but I assumed that was left over from before. But then every so often…"

"It's almost like you can reach out and touch it," Methos finished. "I have a theory, but I haven't tried it yet. I don't want to hurt someone."

"It's growing," Duncan added. "I thought I was imagining it, but after Hyde, I know I'm not."

"I've noticed it too. Sometimes the air feels charged around me. Not like in Scotland, but like it's about to spark lightning, and then it's gone."

As Methos spoke, Duncan noticed just the barest hint of another Immortal's presence nearby, then another's, and another's. Methos' grip on the wheel had loosened a little, but tightened again as he caught it too. There had to be maybe five all told. Duncan concentrated and thought he could maybe pick out Kalas from them, but the others he just wasn't sure of. When he saw the look on Methos' face, however, he knew who they must be.

"It's Kronos," Methos muttered. "I'm sure of it."

Duncan didn't question that. If anyone knew Kronos's presence, it would be Methos.

"Well," he said as Methos pulled over to park. "You haven't wanted to hurt anyone, but you may have to."

Methos frowned and pulled out his phone to text one of Amy's recruits and warn them who was inside and that they were going to fall back a bit. He'd just sent the text when his phone rang. He held it so Duncan could see the number calling: Joe Dawson.

"Joe?" Methos said, answering and putting the phone on speaker. Duncan held his breath while they waited to hear Joe's voice.

But it definitely wasn't Joe.

"Methos," Kronos' voice came out. "How good to hear you alive and well. This would have been so much less satisfying if you had already gotten yourself killed. You do know only I'm allowed to do that now."

Duncan might have snapped back at him but Methos put up a hand to silence him.

"What do you want, Kronos?" Methos asked. 

"You know perfectly well what I want! I want you. I want you, and I want that moralizing child, MacLeod."

"You can't always get what you want, Kronos. Or did you miss the Rolling Stones?"

Duncan wasn't sure if it was the best idea in the world to taunt Kronos, but then, Methos did know him better. Not that that was all too reassuring, but it was true.

Kronos laughed on the other end of the line. "I will make you pay for that, and for everything else. And I _will_ get what I want, because if I don't, I will take it out of your dear friend here. I gather you're quite close! Aren't you, Joseph?"

Duncan and Methos could hear Joe in the background, swearing and telling them not to risk themselves for him.

"So selfless, isn't he?" Kronos asked. "But I'm sure he won't be so eager to sacrifice all the others here. We've found this whole building full of people who know all about us! I'm told you spent a good deal of time with them, made quite a few friends. And they're all mortal, brother. All just as easy to kill, to torture. Caspian's just dying for a good meal, you know."

Methos looked vaguely ill and Duncan didn't blame him. The thought of Caspian with all those Watchers at his disposal was sickening. 

"So what is it you actually want from me?" Methos said.

"You know where I am," Kronos said. "I expect you here. You and MacLeod. Ten minutes. Each minute you're late, I take someone with this charming tattoo and I chop it off. Don't show, and I will kill every single person in here, slowly. And you know as well as I do what my skills in that area are."

"And if we show up, will you let them go?" Methos asked. "It doesn't really give us much of an incentive to show up if you're going to do the same thing regardless."

"You know me so well, brother. Yes. I will let them go, eventually. We'll negotiate when you get here."

Kronos hung up without another word and Methos looked over at Duncan.

"Well?" Methos asked. 

"We have to go," Duncan said. If they did, there was at least a chance. And they apparently had an advantage beyond Amy and her recruits going in without Kronos knowing: Kronos hadn't seemed to know that Methos and Duncan were already nearby. He'd seemed to be banking on it, maybe assuming they'd never make it in time and he'd get to prove his intent by mutilating Watchers.

"Right. So. Let's go."

* * *

Joe hadn't gotten a good up-close look at the Horsemen back when Methos had been dealing with them in Bordeaux. Mac had, but he hadn't really wanted to talk much about it after the fact. Neither of them had. All Joe had really gotten out of Mac had been that Methos had been a lot more dangerous than they'd realized, and that in the end he'd done the right thing. Methos had been a little harder to talk to about it. How did you go about asking a friend about their murderous past? Or their murderous past friends?

One night, late at the bar, Methos had come in after a challenge and he'd been a little more talkative than usual. He'd told Joe that he had hoped to never see Kronos again, but now all sorts of people from his past seemed to be popping up. He'd mentioned being scared that Kronos would come after him for centuries. That he'd probably deserved to be hunted for a while. 

Watching Kronos pace the main room of the building while Caspian tried to get Silas riled up, Joe had a pang of sympathy for Methos. Even if he had once been their friend, their brother, this wasn't him now. 

Joe had been watching the clock carefully. Kronos had an alarm set, which he'd taken great pleasure in showing Joe. One of the new recruits was tied up nearby and Joe knew if it came down to him or her, he'd gladly lose an arm to keep her safe. But they might not get the choice.

Two minutes left. Joe tried to think of just how Methos and Duncan could deal with this and he couldn't quite figure it out. He was starting to wonder if he could somehow manage to negotiate his own life for the rest of the people in the building when Kronos, Caspian, and Silas all went on the alert.

Methos walked in through the front door, sword in hand. MacLeod was just behind him.

"Well well!" Kronos said. "And here I was thinking you might actually skip out. Well, I figured MacLeod wouldn't. He's far too foolish to run. You, brother, you surprise me."

"I did tell you I've changed," Methos told him. "You can't possibly think that I'd have set you up to lose your head and still be the person you called your brother."

"I don't believe you set it up quite the way you'd like to think," Kronos told him. "But you're here now."

He walked over to the recruit near Joe and Joe had a moment of panic that he was going to kill her anyhow, just to prove that he could, but instead he hauled her to her feet and shoved her towards Silas. "Take her downstairs to the others. She's safe. For now."

Silas left with the young woman and Caspian walked over to Duncan. "I think I want this one," Caspian said. "He took my head last time. I'd like to return the favor."

Kronos laughed. "Fitting," he said. "He took mine too, but you can have him. I want our dear brother. He can watch. And then he can watch me pick off the rest of his friends, one by one."

* * *

There was a tense moment when Methos wasn't sure if they'd timed it right. It complicated things that Kronos had sent Silas down to the basement. Hopefully they'd manage to take him by surprise. He couldn't feel Kalas or Xavier anywhere nearby and they had been there as he and Mac had approached. That felt like a good sign. Like one of the Watchers had managed to kill them. This was all new, though, this heightened sense of other Immortals. He hadn't exercised it much before that final fight and learning it on the fly was a risky move. 

"Just let them go," Methos told Kronos. "They wouldn't even be that much fun to toy with."

"You've gone far softer than I'd realized," Kronos told him. "My brother, the fun isn't from them, it's from _you_. 

Caspian was too close to Joe. Methos hoped the rest had been freed. Amy had texted that they'd gotten in through the fourth floor entrance and taken care of the traitors up there and that they were making their way down through the back passages of the building. If she'd been gathering the best Watchers as she went, not just sending everyone out, they'd be a formidable group. If he could just get Caspian away from Joe, they'd have a good chance.

Methos was considering his next move when they all heard a roar echo up from the basement stairwell. The momentary distraction was just enough for Methos to dive in between Caspian and Joe while Mac raised his sword against Kronos. Methos hadn't been entirely sure who would end up facing whom, but he had to admit to himself that he'd far rather take on Caspian than Kronos. While Caspian was a vicious piece of shit, Kronos knew Methos better. Knew his weaknesses. 

On the other hand, Kronos had already faced Mac once before. Just like all the others out there, he knew that Mac had succeeded in taking his head, and he probably had the memory of his loss fresh in his mind.

Methos could hear fighting coming from the stairwell to the basement but he didn't have time to focus on it. Caspian was laughing as he swung his sword, aiming to inflict as much damage as possible. They fought through the corridor from the main hall to the rear offices, knocking over chairs and shoving paperwork and books at each other. Methos had a distinct advantage here, having spent far more time in this building than Caspian could have known. He directed the fight where he wanted, keeping Caspian in the more awkward position through the offices and rows of desks. 

The building was a bit of a maze after the Watchers had spent so long reusing it and moving people from office to office. There were hallways full of dead hardware that had been upgraded and then left, just in case someone ever needed them for parts. No one ever needed them for parts. There were oddly placed passageways from room to room and hallways that looked like dead ends but only because doorways were blocked off by desks or bookcases. 

Caspian caught Methos on the arm, but Methos had gotten worse wounds from better opponents in the past, so he ignored it and just kept moving. He caught Caspian's side, earning him a snarl. Methos ducked behind a cart full of twenty year old computer towers and then sent them crashing to the ground. Caspian had to move out of the way as Methos dashed through a narrow passage at the end of the hall, then came around to the main door to catch Caspian from behind.

To his credit, Caspian turned almost in time, but Methos didn't want to give him any credit at all. He'd always been a monster and he'd never even attempted to change. Methos swung his sword, taking his former brother's head in one clean sweep.

As the quickening hit him, Methos tried to focus. He didn't have time to be wiped out by Caspian's frenetic energy right now. When it passed, Methos paused to see who else he could feel nearby and was relieved to feel several others, people he knew, fast approaching. He was fairly sure he could feel Carolyn and Fitz along with Marcus, Rebecca, even Darius. Having them nearby would hopefully make what he wanted to try a whole lot easier.

Methos hurried back out to the main room in time to see Rebecca and Marcus entering while Mac fought off Kronos. They watched as Mac got a good slice in against Kronos' gut and Methos took that moment as his cue to try what he'd planned. He'd thought he would need the others to draw on their strength, but now he found he didn't need them at all. The stories had been exaggerations. There wasn't a ritual or anything special to do, and now he knew - their friends had no more power in them than anyone else now. Methos and Duncan had all the extra still inside, and it had been growing as Immortals around the world had gone back to fighting, only for the expected quickening to seek out Methos or Duncan instead of the winner. With all of that extra power, Methos simply reached out, not physically so much as mentally, taking hold of Kronos' quickening and _yanking_, like pulling a tablecloth off a table. He saw Kronos stagger and felt a rush of electric power surge through his body. 

"What was that?" Rebecca asked, skidding to a stop a ways away as Kronos collapsed to the floor. Mac stepped back and stared, then turned to look at Methos.

"What did you do?" he asked him.

Methos stared at him. "I stopped it," he told him. "I took away what made him so dangerous."

He felt a few more of their friends arrive and let the sense of them surround him with what he now knew to be a familiar glow. He reached out to MacLeod, then felt for the other Immortals in the building. They were there, dark spots of energy radiating from the basement, like smouldering coals waiting to spark back to life. 

Methos had done this before. He knew that now. Him and MacLeod. But they'd been clumsy about it, reaching and pushing and spilling the power out into the world unchecked. Now Methos pulled it back, targeting first Xavier and then Kalas, smiling grimly as he felt Kalas die an ignominious mortal death from a gut wound that now could not heal. He deserved far worse for what he'd done to Don, but dying twice would have to be enough. Next he moved on to Silas, who wasn't dead but was unconscious. He drew out his brother's quickening, tucking it back into his own self where he'd held it for years. 

Immortals in the building dealt with, Methos used the power present in and around himself to go further, out of the building and into the city. It had to end. Somehow that Watcher had known. Or the people he'd talked to had. They hadn't known exactly how to do it, but they'd been right. It could end without a fight. It would end. Maybe not now, but someday soon. He knew there were more out there he couldn't reach. But if he could just get close enough, maybe. It would be something to do now that he had more years ahead of him.

* * *

Duncan could feel the power swirling in the air, not quite as thick as it had been in Scotland but there all the same. He reached with his own sense of it and found he could feel it moving in streams towards Methos. He tugged a little and peeled a strand of it away only to feel it crackle into his own quickening. It was an odd feeling, taking what made one of them Immortal without actually taking a head. 

It took a few minutes for Methos to finish whatever he was doing and when he was done, he staggered a little, then quickly found a chair to sit down in.

Duncan watched him, then turned to see that Joe was being untied by Darius. He went over to help Joe into a chair.

"Joe, I'm glad you're okay."

Joe looked at him and nodded. "Yeah, I'm glad I'm okay too. Now do you mind explaining what the hell just happened?"

Duncan looked over at Methos, then sighed. "I don't know how to explain it," he admitted. "Looks like we found a way to take quickenings without taking heads. Amy Zoll showed up at Methos' place and we got together as many people as possible to take care of this."

Joe opened his mouth, then closed it again and sighed. "Yeah, I'll get it out of you guys eventually. Do me a favor and go check on everyone else? We had a lot of people in the building and they got us all with a combo of gas and traitors."

Duncan nodded and patted Joe gently on the shoulder before leaving him to Darius. Methos was talking to Rebecca and Marcus while a few more of their friends started to walk through the building, looking for anyone who'd managed to hide out.

The basement was easy enough to find. Duncan made his way down the stairs, stopping when he saw Silas' immobile form at the bottom, arms and legs tied together tightly. 

"Hello!" he called. "It's Duncan MacLeod. If Amy Zoll is down here, she can vouch for me! Is everyone down here okay?"

"Took you guys long enough," Amy said, coming out from an office near the foot of the stairs. Duncan looked around, taking note of the bookcases and racks of boxes and scrolls. This had to be the archives for this building and he wondered for a moment what he might find there. But it wasn't really his place and it wasn't something he had time for right now. 

There were a handful of Watchers coming out from the office now, including the recruits Amy had brought with her to Methos' place and a few others armed with guns and knives. One of them was an irate-looking woman who immediately hurried over to the desk across from the office door.

"What happened up there?" Amy asked while the strike team she'd apparently assembled got to work dragging Kalas and Xavier's bodies to the elevator. 

"I wish I could explain," Duncan told her. "We found a way to finish things, I think." As he spoke he realized the irate woman was listening intently, hands poised over a keyboard. He hesitated, then continued. "Adam took their quickenings. Kalas' and Xavier's. Silas too. And Kronos."

"How is that even possible?" the woman at the desk asked. Then she stopped. "That chronicle," she muttered. "Pierson was translating it…" She went back into the office and dug around in a desk. Duncan peeked in and saw her reach into a drawer and tug something inside that popped a panel open in the top. She pulled out a small book and held it up. "It must be in here."

Duncan thought back to the notes on Methos' table. Sure. That could well have been it. He'd ask later. For now, he just wanted to make sure all of his friends were okay. He'd deal with the implications of this whole mess another time.

"If everyone's okay," he said to Amy and the rest of them. "I think we should probably go. I'd offer to help clean up, but I suspect there's plenty you folks don't want us seeing."

Amy glanced at the other woman. "Thea? Want to at least come up and catalog who's here and when they got here? We should have it recorded."

Duncan almost laughed at her. Watchers. He supposed it took a good deal more to faze them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All that's left is the epilogue, folks. Thank you for reading the longest thing I've ever written!


	14. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Methos and Duncan have a much-needed talk after the Watcher HQ incident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. I'd like to thank all the people who encouraged me during NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago when I started this, who kept me writing and let me bounce ideas off of them. In particular: Toshi, who always encourages my horrible ideas and has kept me thinking about this the whole time. Su, who cheers me on. Andy, who lets me read out loud when that's the only thing that will let me spot the sneakiest awkward bits. And seriously, if at any point during the writing or editing of this I chatted with you and talked about what I was trying to do, thank you. Also, thank you to everyone who has read through this whole story. Highlander is the fandom of my heart and I'm so pleased that people still want to read fic for it.

Methos had packed up most of his things. The apartment wasn't bare, but then he hadn't given up on the possibility of some day coming back to Paris. For now, Amy was welcome to it. Her place had been a hole in the wall and Methos had signed over the deed for the building to her on the condition that she always keep a spot open for him if he came back.

"Hey," Joe called from the living room. "You taking these books?"

"I already packed what I'm taking," Methos called back as he went to see what Joe was talking about. "Oh, those."

Joe was looking at the bookcase in his living room. It was mostly full of junk. The books were all light stuff. The sort of thing you'd buy to read on a plane or on the beach. Try as he might, Methos had never really gotten over the novelty of being able to just buy books. The fact that they were printed in such vast quantities when once he'd had to write out every single thing by hand, that was still amazing, even hundreds of years after Gutenberg had changed the world. But that did mean that he ended up with more books than he needed. 

"If you want any of them, they're yours," Methos told Joe. He turned to go back to finishing up in the bedroom when he felt someone approaching. It was MacLeod. He knew he'd always be able to tell, now, who was nearby, how close they were. It was never going to go away. Not unless he opted out of the whole thing. But try as he might, he just couldn't see himself doing that. 

Methos considered telling Joe that Mac was coming, but decided against it. He'd be at the door in a minute or two anyhow. Instead, he went into the kitchen and got himself a beer. He'd probably want something a little stronger if this conversation was going to go the way he thought it might, but that could wait until MacLeod was actually in his home.

A few minutes later, Methos knew Mac was just outside before he knocked. He went to open the door, managing to time it such that Mac's hand was raised to knock. Methos couldn't resist a little smirk as he let him in.

"What brings you over?" he asked.

MacLeod was looking around. "You're leaving?" he asked. Given the somewhat stripped-down state of the apartment and the handful of boxes stacked near the door, it was a good guess on Mac's part.

"Bright boy," Methos sighed. "I figured it was a good time to take a little trip. See who else is out there. Avoid them at all costs."

"We need to talk before you do that," Mac said. "No leaving without talking this time."

"If I'd wanted to avoid it, I'd already be gone," Methos assured him. "Come on. Grab a beer and we'll go up to the roof."

Well, Mac could grab a beer. Methos already had one. And he ducked into his bedroom and grabbed a bottle of scotch before they went up. 

The roof had a nice open space in the middle and Methos had a few chairs set up there. He had a decent view and on a nice night you could sit up on the roof for hours and not be hassled. He took a seat in one of the chairs and popped open his beer, setting the scotch aside for the moment. 

"Well?" he said, looking up at Mac. "Sit. Talk."

Mac regarded him for a long few moments. He said nothing, did nothing, just stared. Methos got the distinct impression he hadn't been expecting an open invitation to converse about the whole thing. He'd probably had a whole strategy in mind for how to convince Methos to talk to him.

Finally, he sighed and sat down, opening his own beer and taking a drink.

"You should have asked," he said, without looking in Methos' direction.

"Who?" Methos asked. "You? Or Kronos?"

"Both. Either," Mac said. "What gave you the right to decide he should be mortal?"

"What gave him the right to kill the people he'd killed?" Methos asked. "Remember I told you once, we were so similar for so long, if I judged him then I judged myself?"

Mac nodded. "I remember."

"Yeah, well, he died. You took his head. I couldn't do it. And I don't know if I could have done it this time. But I made that judgement this time, Mac. I know what I did back in Scotland. I brought them back. That wasn't just you, it was me. I let them all come back. I had at least some responsibility to make sure they didn't cause any more harm. I did more good than bad with that. We did more good than bad. But that still left us with Kalas and the Kurgan and O'Rourke and Walker. They weren't going to stop. Not now. Not ever. Not unless they couldn't keep on as they were."

"So you made them mortal," Mac sighed. "They're still out there, you know."

"Not for long," Methos told him. "They'll either shape up and realize they can't get away with their shit now that they're mortal, or they'll get arrested, or die. They won't wreak havoc forever."

They were both silent for a while after that. In truth, Methos suspected if he'd pulled just a little harder, taking just a little more, maybe he'd have been able to make them just drop dead wherever they were. But he hadn't wanted that much on his shoulders.

"Then what now?" Mac asked. "We're judge and jury for every Immortal out there?"

Methos shrugged. "I don't think so. Not unless you want to be. I'm not taking anything from anyone anymore. Not unless they won't back down. Eventually it'll stop. All of it. And it's not like anyone gets anything out of it now."

Mac nodded. Methos hadn't expected him to agree, but it made sense. They'd both been getting stronger as the days had gone on, even without taking a single challenge themselves aside from the fight at Watcher headquarters. Methos was starting to be able to track each time it happened, each time someone else took a head and the power came to him, not the winner. If all quickenings came back to them now, which it looked like they were, then what was the point of challenging each other? And if the two of them could just rip quickenings out at will, it was too risky to challenge them. 

Methos picked up the scotch and opened it. He'd brought up glasses too and poured one for himself and one for Mac. He handed it over and they both sat, just watching the Paris skyline. 

"I told Darius to let people know if they want a mortal life, to come see me," Mac said after a while. "There've always been some of us who resented being Immortal. Who never wanted it. And Joe told me the Watchers think they've got two new Immortals since the fight."

So that's what that had been. Methos had felt something twice the day before, little twinges, like someone's hand just over the back of his neck, not touching and yet noticeable all the same. It must have been new Immortals coming back to life for the first time. He filed that away as something to keep tabs on in the future. What was more interesting, however, was MacLeod setting himself up as some sort of Immortal battery, taking on the quickenings of anyone who just wanted to live and grow old.

"Better you than me," Methos told him. "I've got more than I want as it is." So much so that he could feel it behind his eyes sometimes, a crackle in his palms, a surge of something deep in his gut. It pushed gently at his skin from inside, like the tide lapping at the shore.

"And if I came to you?" Mac asked. Methos turned to look at him and found that MacLeod was staring straight at him, hands wrapped tight around his glass. "If I showed up and told you I wanted out. What would you do?"

What _would_ he do? It would leave him the only one who could do it. Unless they figured out how to transfer it. It would leave him alone, in a way. But there was MacLeod, looking at him like his answer would determine their entire future.

"I'd deal with it," Methos told him. "But you'd have to find me first."

And wasn't that a laugh. Eventually, he suspected they'd be able to feel each other's presence with an ocean in between them. Mac would find him if he wanted. And he'd deal with it. He wasn't sure how, but he would. He'd have to. This was the world they lived in now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't say definitively that I _will_ write a sequel to this - my first attempt bogged down in continuity issues - but I can say that I will try. I've got a sequel to my HL/MCU crossover to finish first, but we all know how plots can sneak up on us and demand attention. Thank you for reading!


End file.
